,transcribed from the #aijb ,macmillan  
and ,co4 8,historical ,lectures and     
,essays0 edition by ,david ,price1 email
 ccx#jgdpglaf4org                       
,picture3 ,book cover                   
,,alexandria ,,and ,,her ,,schools4 #c  
,,preface4      ,i ,,should not have    
presumed to choose for any lectures of  
mine such a  subject as that which ,i   
have tried to treat in this book4  ,the 
subject  was chosen by the ,institution 
where the lectures were delivered4      
,still  less should ,i have presumed to 
print them of my own accord1 knowing how
  fragmentary and crude they are4  ,they
 were printed at the special request  of
 my audience4  ,least of all1 perhaps1  
ought ,i to have presumed to  publish   
them1 as ,i have done1 at ,cambridge1   
where any inaccuracy or  sciolism 7and  
that such defects exist in these pages1 
,i cannot but fear7  would be instantly 
detected1 and severely censured3 but    
nevertheless1 it  seemed to me that     
,cambridge was the fittest place in     

which they could see  the light1 because
 to ,cambridge ,i mainly owe what little
 right method or  sound thought may be  
found in them1 or indeed1 in anything   
which ,i have  ever written4  ,in the   
heyday of youthful greediness and       
ambition1 when  the mind1 dazzled by the
 vastness and variety of the universe1  
must needs  know everything1 or rather  
know about everything1 at once and on   
the  spot1 too many are apt1 as ,i have 
been in past years1 to complain of      
,cambridge studies as too dry and       
narrow3 but as time teaches the student1
  year by year1 what is really required 
for an understanding of the objects     
with which he meets1 he begins to find  
that his ,university1 in as far as  he  
has really received her teaching into   
himself1 has given him1 in her          
criticism1 her mathematics1 above all1  
in ,plato1 something which all the      
popular knowledge1 the lectures and     
institutions of the day1 and even  good 
books themselves1 cannot give1 a boon   

more precious than learning2  namely1   
the art of learning4  ,that instead of  
casting into his lazy lap  treasures    
which he would not have known how to    
use1 she has taught him to  mine for    
them himself2 and has by her wise       
refusal to gratify his  intellectual    
greediness1 excited his hunger1 only    
that he may be the  stronger to hunt and
 till for his own subsistence2 and thus1
 the deeper  he drinks1 in after years1 
at fountains wisely forbidden to him    
while he  was a ,cambridge student1 and 
sees his old companions growing up into 
sound-headed and sound-hearted practical
 men1 liberal and expansive1 and  yet   
with a firm standing-ground for thought 
and action1 he learns to  complain less 
and less of ,cambridge studies1 and more
 and more of that  conceit and haste of 
his own1 which kept him from reaping the
 full  advantage of her training4       
,these ,lectures1 as ,i have said1 are  
altogether crude and fragmentary--how1  
indeed1 could they be otherwise1 dealing

 with so vast a subject1 and so  long a 
period of time8  ,they are meant neither
 as ,essays nor as ,orations1  but      
simply as a collection of hints to those
 who may wish to work out the  subject  
for themselves2 and1 ,i trust1 as giving
 some glimpses of a  central idea1 in   
the light of which the spiritual history
 of ,alexandria1  and perhaps of other  
countries also1 may be seen to have in  
itself a  coherence and organic method4 
,i was of course compelled1 by the      
circumstances under which these         
,lectures were delivered1 to keep clear 
of all points which are commonly  called
 8controversial40  ,i cannot but feel   
that this was a gain1 rather  than a    
loss2 because it forced me1 if ,i wished
 to give any interpretation  at all of  
,alexandrian thought1 any ,theodicy at  
all of her fate1 to refer  to laws which
 ,i cannot but believe to be deeper1    
wider1 more truly  eternal than the     
points which cause most of our modern   
controversies1  either theological or   

political2 laws which will1 ,i cannot   
but believe  also1 reassert themselves1 
and have to be reasserted by all wise   
teachers1 very soon indeed1 and it may  
be under most novel embodiments1  but   
without any change in their eternal     
spirit4    ,for ,i may say1 ,i hope1 now
 7what if said ten years ago would have 
only  excited laughter71 that ,i cannot 
but subscribe to the opinion of the many
  wise men who believe that ,europe1 and
 ,england as an integral part  thereof1 
is on the eve of a revolution1 spiritual
 and political1 as vast  and awful as   
that which took place at the            
,reformation2 and that1  beneficial as  
that revolution will doubtless be to the
 destinies of  mankind in general1 it   
depends upon the wisdom and courage of  
each nation  individually1 whether that 
great deluge shall issue1 as the        
,reformation  did1 in a fresh outgrowth 
of ,european nobleness and strength or  
usher in1  after pitiable confusions and
 sorrows1 a second ,byzantine age of    

stereotyped effeminacy and imbecility4  
,for ,i have as little sympathy  with   
those who prate so loudly of the        
progress of the species1 and the  advent
 of ,i know-not-what ,cockaigne of      
universal peace and plenty1 as ,i  have 
with those who believe on the strength  
of 8unfulfilled prophecy10  the downfall
 of ,christianity1 and the end of the   
human race to be at  hand4              
,nevertheless1 one may well believe that
 prophecy will be fulfilled  in this    
great crisis1 as it is in every great   
crisis1 although one be  unable to      
conceive by what method of symbolism the
 drying up of the  ,euphrates can be    
twisted to signify the fall of          
,constantinople3 and one  can well      
believe that a day of judgment is at    
hand1 in which for every  nation and    
institution1 the wheat will be sifted   
out and gathered into  ,god's garner1   
for the use of future generations1 and  
the chaff burnt up  with that fire      
unquenchable which will try every man's 

work1 without  being of opinion that    
after a few more years are over1 the    
great majority  of the human race will  
be consigned hopelessly to never-ending 
torments4    ,if prophecy be indeed a   
divine message to man2 if it be anything
 but a  cabbala1 useless either to the  
simple-minded or to the logical1        
intended  only for the plaything of a   
few devout fancies1 it must declare the 
unchangeable laws by which the          
unchangeable ,god is governing1 and has 
always governed1 the human race2 and    
therefore only by understanding what    
has happened1 can we understand what    
will happen2 only by understanding      
history1 can we understand prophecy2 and
 that not merely by picking  out--too   
often arbitrarily and unfairly--a few   
names and dates from the  records of all
 the ages1 but by trying to discover its
 organic laws1 and  the causes which    
produce in nations1 creeds1 and systems1
 health and  disease1 growth1 change1   
decay and death4  ,if1 in one small     

corner of  this vast field1 ,i shall    
have thrown a single ray of light upon  
these  subjects--if ,i shall have done  
anything in these pages towards         
illustrating the pathology of a single  
people1 ,i shall believe that ,i  have  
done better service to the ,catholic    
,faith and the ,scriptures1 than  if ,i 
did really 8know the times and the      
seasons1 which the ,father has  kept in 
,his own hand40  ,for by the former act 
,i may have helped to make  some one man
 more prudent and brave to see and to do
 what ,god requires of  him2 by the     
latter ,i could only add to that        
paralysis of superstitious  fear1 which 
is already but too common among us1 and 
but too likely to  hinder us from doing 
our duty manfully against our real foes1
 whether it  be pestilence at home or   
tyranny abroad4    ,these last words    
lead me to another subject1 on which ,i 
am bound to say a  few words4  ,i have1 
at the end of these ,lectures1 made some
 allusion to  the present war4  ,to have

 entered further into political         
questions would  have been improper in  
the place where those ,lectures were    
delivered3 but  ,i cannot refrain from  
saying here something more on this      
matter2 and  that1 first1 because all   
political questions have their real root
 in  moral and spiritual ones1 and not  
7as too many fancy7 in questions merely 
relating to the balance of power or     
commercial economy1 and are 7the  world 
being under the guidance of a spiritual1
 and not a physical ,being7  finally    
decided on those spiritual grounds1 and 
according to the just  laws of the      
kingdom of ,god2 and1 therefore1 the    
future political  horoscope of the ,east
 depends entirely on the present        
spiritual state of  its inhabitants1 and
 of us who have 7and rightly7 taken up  
their cause2  in short1 on many of those
 questions on which ,i have touched in  
these  ,lectures3 and next1 because ,i  
feel bound1 in justice to myself1 to    
guard  against any mistake about my     

meaning or supposition that ,i consider 
the  ,turkish empire a righteous thing1 
or one likely to stand much longer on   
the face of ,god's earth4    ,the       
,turkish empire1 as it now exists1 seems
 to me an altogether  unrighteous and   
worthless thing4  ,it stands no longer  
upon the assertion  of the great truth  
of ,islam1 but on the merest brute force
 and  oppression4  ,it has long since   
lost the only excuse which one race can 
have for holding another in subjection2 
that which we have for taking on        
ourselves the tutelage of the ,hindoos1 
and which ,rome had for its  tutelage of
 the ,syrians and ,egyptians2 namely1   
the governing with  tolerable justice   
those who cannot govern themselves1 and 
making them  better and more prosperous 
people1 by compelling them to submit to 
law4  ,i do not know when this excuse is
 a sufficient one4  ,god showed that it 
was so for several centuries in the case
 of the ,romans2 ,god will show  whether
 it is in the case of our ,indian       

empire3 but this ,i say1 that the       
,turkish empire has not even that excuse
 to plead2 as is proved by the  patent  
fact that the whole ,east1 the very     
garden of the old world1 has  become a  
desert and a ruin under the upas-blight 
of their government4    ,as for the     
regeneration of ,turkey1 it is a        
question whether the  regeneration of   
any nation which has sunk1 not into mere
 valiant  savagery1 but into effete and 
profligate luxury1 is possible4  ,still 
more  is it a question whether a        
regeneration can be effected1 not by the
 rise  of a new spiritual idea 7as in   
the case of the ,koreish71 but simply by
  more perfect material appliances1 and 
commercial prudence4  ,history gives  no
 instance1 it seems to me1 of either    
case2 and if our attempt to  regenerate 
,greece by freeing it has been an utter 
failure1 much more1 it  seems to me1    
would any such attempt fail in the case 
of the ,turkish race4  ,for what can be 
done with a people which has lost the   

one great quality  which was the tenure 
of its existence1 its military skill8   
,let any one  read the accounts of the  
,turkish armies in the fifteenth1       
sixteenth1 and  seventeenth centuries1  
when they were the tutors and models of 
all ,europe  in the art of war1 and then
 consider the fact that those very      
armies  require now to be officered by  
foreign adventurers1 in order to make   
them  capable of even keeping together1 
and let him ask himself seriously1      
whether such a fall can ever be         
recovered4  ,when1 in the age of        
,theodosius1 and again in that of       
,justinian1 the ,roman armies had fallen
  into the same state2 when the ,italian
 legions required to be led by          
,stilicho the ,vandal1 and the          
,byzantine by ,belisar the ,sclav and   
,narses  the ,persian1 the end of all   
things was at hand1 and came2 as it will
 come  soon to ,turkey4    ,but if      
,turkey deserves to fall1 and must fall1
 it must not fall by our  treachery4    

,its sins will surely be avenged upon   
it3 but wrong must not  avenge wrong1 or
 the penalty is only passed on from one 
sinner to  another4  ,whatsoever element
 of good is left in the ,turk1 to that  
we must  appeal as our only means1 if   
not of saving him1 still of helping him 
to a  quiet euthanasia1 and absorption  
into a worthier race of successors4  ,he
  is said 7,i know not how truly7 to    
have one virtue left2 that of           
faithfulness to his word4  ,only by     
showing him that we too abhor  treachery
 and bad faith1 can we either do him    
good1 or take a safe  standing-ground in
 our own peril4  ,and this we have done2
 and for this we  shall be rewarded4    
,but this is surely not all our duty4   
,even if we  should be able to make the 
civil and religious freedom of the      
,eastern  ,christians the price of our  
assistance to the ,mussulman1 the       
struggle  will not be over2 for ,russia 
will still be what she has always been1 
and  the northern ,anarch will be       

checked1 only to return to the contest  
with  fiercer lust of aggrandisement1 to
 enact the part of a new ,macedon1      
against a new ,greece1 divided1 not     
united1 by the treacherous bond of  that
 balance of power1 which is but war     
under the guise of peace4  ,europe      
needs a holier and more spiritual1 and  
therefore a stronger union1 than  can be
 given by armed neutralities1 and the   
so-called cause of order4  ,she needs   
such a bond as in the ,elizabethan age  
united the free states of  ,europe      
against the ,anarch of ,spain1 and      
delivered the ,western nations  from a  
rising world-tyranny1 which promised to 
be even more hideous than  the elder one
 of ,rome4  ,if1 as then1 ,england shall
 proclaim herself the  champion of      
freedom by acts1 and not by words and   
paper1 she may1 as she  did then1 defy  
the rulers of the darkness of this      
world1 for the ,god of  ,light will be  
with her4  ,but1 as yet1 it is          
impossible to look without  sad         

forebodings upon the destiny of a war1  
begun upon the express  understanding   
that evil shall be left triumphant      
throughout ,europe1  wheresoever that   
evil does not seem1 to our own selfish  
short-sightedness1 to threaten us with  
immediate danger2 with promises1  that  
under the hollow name of the ,cause of  
,order--and that promise made by  a     
revolutionary ,anarch--the wrongs of    
,italy1 ,hungary1 ,poland1 ,sweden1     
shall remain unredressed1 and that      
,prussia and ,austria1 two tyrannies1   
the one far more false and hypocritical1
 the other even more rotten than  that  
of ,turkey1 shall1 if they will but     
observe a hollow and uncertain          
neutrality 7for who can trust the liar  
and the oppressor87--be allowed not     
only to keep their ill-gotten spoils1   
but even now to play into the hands  of 
our foe1 by guarding his ,polish        
frontier for him1 and keeping down the  
victims of his cruelty1 under pretence  
of keeping down those of their  own4    

,it is true1 the alternative is an awful
 one2 one from which statesmen and      
nations may well shrink3 but it is a    
question1 whether that alternative  may 
not be forced upon us sooner or later1  
whether we must not from the  first look
 it boldly in the face1 as that which   
must be some day1 and for  which we must
 prepare1 not cowardly1 and with cries  
about ,god's wrath and  judgments       
against us--which would be abject1 were 
they not expressed in  such second-hand 
stock-phrases as to make one altogether 
doubt their  sincerity1 but             
chivalrously1 and with awful joy1 as a  
noble calling1 an  honour put upon us by
 the ,god of ,nations1 who demands of   
us1 as some  small return for all ,his  
free bounties1 that we should be1 in    
this great  crisis1 the champions of    
,freedom and of ,justice1 which are the 
cause of  ,god4  ,at all events1 we     
shall not escape our duty by being      
afraid of it2  we shall not escape our  
duty by inventing to ourselves some     

other duty1  and calling it 8,order40   
,elizabeth did so at first4  ,she tried 
to keep  the peace with ,spain2 she     
shrank from injuring the cause of ,order
 7then a  nobler one than now1 because  
it was the cause of ,loyalty1 and not   
merely  of ,mammon7 by assisting the    
,scotch and the ,netherlanders3 but her 
duty  was forced upon her2 and she did  
it at last1 cheerfully1 boldly1 utterly1
  like a hero2 she put herself at the   
head of the battle for the freedom of   
the world1 and she conquered1 for ,god  
was with her2 and so that seemingly     
most fearful of all ,england's perils1  
when the real meaning of it was  seen1  
and ,god's will in it obeyed manfully1  
became the foundation of  ,england's    
naval and colonial empire1 and laid the 
foundation of all her  future glories4  
,so it was then1 so it is now2 so it    
will be for ever3 he  who seeks to save 
his life will lose it3 he who willingly 
throws away his  life for the cause of  
mankind1 which is the cause of ,god1 the

 ,father of  mankind1 he shall save it1 
and be rewarded a hundred-fold4  ,that  
,god may  grant us1 the children of the 
,elizabethan heroes1 all wisdom to see  
our  duty1 and courage to do it1 even to
 the death1 should be our earliest      
prayer4  ,our statesmen have done wisely
 and well in refusing1 in spite of      
hot-headed clamours1 to appeal to the   
sword as long as there was any  chance  
of a peaceful settlement even of a      
single evil4  ,they are doing  wisely   
and well now in declining to throw away 
the scabbard as long as  there is hope  
that a determined front will awe the    
offender into  submission3 but the day  
may come when the scabbard must be      
thrown away2  and ,god grant that they  
may have the courage to do it4    ,it is
 reported that our rulers have said1    
that ,english diplomacy can no  longer  
recognise 8nationalities10 but only     
existing 8governments40  ,god  grant    
that they may see in time that the      
assertion of national life1 as a        

spiritual and indefeasible existence1   
was for centuries the central idea  of  
,english policy2 the idea by faith in   
which she delivered first  herself1 and 
then the ,protestant nations of the     
,continent1 successively  from the yokes
 of ,rome1 of ,spain1 of ,france2 and   
that they may reassert  that most       
,english of all truths again1 let the   
apparent cost be what it  may4    ,it is
 true1 that this end will not be        
attained without what is called         
nowadays 8a destruction of human life40 
,but we have yet to learn 7at  least if 
the doctrines which ,i have tried to    
illustrate in this little  book have any
 truth in them7 whether shot or shell   
has the power of  taking away human     
life2 and to believe1 if we believe our 
,bibles1 that  human life can only be   
destroyed by sin1 and that all which is 
lost in  battle is that animal life of  
which it is written1 8,fear not those   
who  can kill the body1 and after that  
have no more that they can do3 but ,i   

will forewarn you whom you shall fear2  
him who1 after he has killed1 has  power
 to destroy both body and soul in hell40
  ,let a man fear him1 the  destroying  
devil1 and fear therefore cowardice1    
disloyalty1 selfishness1  sluggishness1 
which are his works1 and to be utterly  
afraid of which is  to be truly brave4  
,god grant that we of the clergy may    
remember this  during the coming war1   
and instead of weakening the righteous  
courage and  honour of our countrymen by
 instilling into them selfish and       
superstitious fears1 and a theory of the
 future state which represents  ,god1   
not as a saviour1 but a tormentor1 may  
boldly tell them that 8,he is  not the  
,god of the dead but of the living2 for 
all live unto ,him20 and  that he who   
renders up his animal life as a         
worthless thing1 in the cause  of duty1 
commits his real and human life1 his    
very soul and self1 into  the hands of a
 just and merciful ,father1 who has     
promised to leave no  good deed         

unrewarded1 and least of all that most  
noble deed1 the dying  like a man for   
the sake not merely of this land of     
,england1 but of the  freedom and       
national life of half the world4        
,,lecture ,i4  ,,the ,,ptolemaic ,,era4 
,,before ,i begin to lecture upon the   
,physical and ,metaphysical schools of  
,alexandria1 it may be better1 perhaps1 
to define the meaning of these two      
epithets4  ,physical1 we shall all      
agree1 means that which belongs to  2   
natura2 nature1 that which 1 nascitur1  
grows1 by an  organic life1 and         
therefore decays again2 which has a     
beginning1 and  therefore1 ,i presume1  
an end4  ,and ,metaphysical means that  
which we learn  to think of after we    
think of nature2 that which is          
supernatural1 in  fact1 having neither  
beginning nor end1 imperishable1        
immovable1 and  eternal1 which does not 
become1 but always is4  ,these1 at      
least1 are the  wisest definitions of   
these two terms for us just now2 for    

they are those  which were received by  
the whole ,alexandrian school1 even by  
those  commentators who say that        
,aristotle1 the inventor of the term    
,metaphysics1 named his treatise so only
 on account of its following in         
philosophic sequence his book on        
,physics4    ,but1 according to these   
definitions1 the whole history of       
,alexandria  might be to us1 from one   
point of view1 a physical school2 for   
,alexandria1 its society and its        
philosophy1 were born1 and grew1 and    
fed1  and reached their vigour1 and had 
their old age1 their death1 even as a   
plant or an animal has2 and after they  
were dead and dissolved1 the atoms  of  
them formed food for new creations1     
entered into new organisations1  just as
 the atoms of a dead plant or animal    
might do4  ,was ,alexandria  then1 from 
beginning to end1 merely a natural and  
physical phenomenon8    ,it may have    
been4  ,and yet we cannot deny that     
,alexandria was also a  metaphysical    

phenomenon1 vast and deep enough2 seeing
 that it held for  some eighteen hundred
 years a population of several hundred  
thousand  souls2 each of whom1 at least 
according to the ,alexandrian           
philosophy1  stood in a very intimate   
relation to those metaphysic things     
which are  imperishable and immovable   
and eternal1 and indeed1 contained them 
more  or less1 each man1 woman1 and     
child of them in themselves2 having     
wills1  reasons1 consciences1           
affections1 relations to each other2    
being parents1  children1 helpmates1    
bound together by laws concerning right 
and wrong1  and numberless other unseen 
and spiritual relations4    ,surely such
 a body was not merely natural1 any more
 than any other  nation1 society1 or    
scientific school1 made up of men and of
 the spirits1  thoughts1 affections of  
men4  ,it1 like them1 was surely        
spiritual2 and  could be only living and
 healthy1 in as far as it was in harmony
 with  certain spiritual1 unseen1 and   

everlasting laws of ,god2 perhaps1 as   
certain ,alexandrian philosophers would 
have held1 in as far as it was a        
pattern of that ideal constitution and  
polity after which man was  created1 the
 city of ,god which is eternal in the   
,heavens4  ,if so1 may we  not suspect  
of this ,alexandria that it was its own 
fault if it became a  merely physical   
phenomenon2 and that it stooped to      
become a part of  nature1 and took its  
place among the things which are born to
 die1 only  by breaking the law which   
,god had appointed for it2 so           
fulfilling1 in its  own case1 ,st4      
,paul's great words1 that death entered 
into the world by  sin1 and that sin is 
the transgression of the law8    ,be    
that as it may1 there must have been    
metaphysic enough to be learnt in  that1
 or any city of three hundred thousand  
inhabitants1 even though it  had never  
contained lecture-room or philosopher's 
chair1 and had never  heard the names of
 ,aristotle and ,plato4  ,metaphysic    

enough1 indeed1 to be  learnt there1    
could we but enter into the heart of    
even the most brutish  negro slave who  
ever was brought down the ,nile out of  
the desert by  ,nubian merchants1 to    
build piers and docks in whose commerce 
he did not  share1 temples whose worship
 he did not comprehend1 libraries and   
theatres whose learning and civilisation
 were to him as much a sealed  book as  
they were to his countryman1 and        
fellow-slave1 and only friend1  the ape4
  ,there was metaphysic enough in him   
truly1 and things eternal  and          
immutable1 though his dark-skinned      
descendants were three hundred  years in
 discovering the fact1 and in proving it
 satisfactorily to all  mankind for     
ever4  ,you must pardon me if ,i seem   
obscure2 ,i cannot help  looking at the 
question with a somewhat ,alexandrian   
eye1 and talking of  the poor negro     
dock-worker as certain ,alexandrian     
philosophers would have  talked1 of whom
 ,i shall have to speak hereafter4    ,i

 should have been glad1 therefore1 had  
time permitted me1 instead of  confining
 myself strictly to what are now called 
8the physic and  metaphysic schools0 of 
,alexandria1 to have tried as well as ,i
 could to  make you understand how the  
whole vast phenomenon grew up1 and      
supported  a peculiar life of its own1  
for fifteen hundred years and more1 and 
was  felt to be the third1 perhaps the  
second city of the known world1 and one 
so important to the great world-tyrant1 
the ,csar of ,rome1 that no ,roman  of  
distinction was ever sent there as      
prefect1 but the ,alexandrian  national 
vanity and pride of race was allowed to 
the last to pet itself  by having its   
tyrant chosen from its own people4      
,but1 though this cannot be1 we may find
 human elements enough in the  schools  
of ,alexandria1 strictly so called1 to  
interest us for a few  evenings2 for    
these schools were schools of men2 what 
was discovered and  taught was          
discovered and taught by men1 and not by

 thinking-machines2  and whether they   
would have been inclined to confess it  
or not1 their own  personal characters1 
likes and dislikes1 hopes and fears1    
strength and  weakness1 beliefs and     
disbeliefs1 determined their metaphysics
 and their  physics for them1 quite     
enough to enable us to feel for them as 
men of  like passions with ourselves2   
and for that reason only1 men whose     
thoughts and speculations are worthy of 
a moment's attention from us4  ,for what
 is really interesting to man1 save men1
 and ,god1 the ,father of  men8    ,in  
the year #cca ,b4,c4 one of the greatest
 intellects whose influence the  world  
has ever felt1 saw1 with his eagle      
glance1 the unrivalled advantage  of the
 spot which is now ,alexandria2 and     
conceived the mighty project of  making 
it the point of union of two1 or rather 
of three worlds4  ,in a new  city1 named
 after himself1 ,europe1 ,asia1 and     
,africa were to meet and to  hold       
communion4  ,a glance at the map will   

show you what an  1 a  centre of the    
world1 this ,alexandria is1 and perhaps 
arouse in your  minds1 as it has often  
done in mine1 the suspicion that it has 
not yet  fulfilled its whole destiny1   
but may become at any time a prize for  
contending nations1 or the centre of    
some world-wide empire to come4         
,communicating with ,europe and the     
,levant by the ,mediterranean1 with     
,india  by the ,red ,sea1 certain of    
boundless supplies of food from the     
desert-guarded valley of the ,nile1 to  
which it formed the only key1 thus      
keeping all ,egypt1 as it were1 for its 
own private farm1 it was weak only  on  
one side1 that of ,judea4  ,that small  
strip of fertile mountain land1         
containing innumerable military         
positions from which an enemy might     
annoy  ,egypt1 being1 in fact1 one      
natural chain of fortresses1 was the key
 to  ,phoenicia and ,syria4  ,it was an 
eagle's eyrie by the side of a pen of   
fowls4  ,it must not be left defenceless

 for a single year4  ,tyre and ,gaza    
had been taken2 so no danger was to be  
apprehended from the seaboard3 but  to  
subdue the ,judean mountaineers1 a race 
whose past sufferings had  hardened them
 in a dogged fanaticism of courage and  
endurance1 would be a  long and         
sanguinary task4  ,it was better to make
 terms with them2 to  employ them as    
friendly warders of their own mountain  
walls4  ,their very  fanaticism and     
isolation made them sure allies4  ,there
 was no fear of  their fraternising with
 the ,eastern invaders4  ,if the country
 was left in  their hands1 they would   
hold it against all comers4  ,terms were
 made with  them2 and for several       
centuries they fulfilled their trust4   
,this ,i apprehend to be the explanation
 of that conciliatory policy of         
,alexander's toward the ,jews1 which was
 pursued steadily by the ,ptolemies1  by
 ,pompey1 and by the ,romans1 as long as
 these same ,jews continued to be       
endurable upon the face of the land4    

,at least1 we shall find the history  of
 ,alexandria and that of ,judea         
inextricably united for more than three 
hundred years4    ,so arose1 at the     
command of the great conqueror1 a mighty
 city1 around  those two harbours1 of   
which the western one only is now in    
use4  ,the  ,pharos was then an island4 
,it was connected with the mainland by a
 great  mole1 furnished with forts and  
drawbridges4  ,on the ruins of that mole
  now stands the greater part of the    
modern city2 the vast site of the       
ancient one is a wilderness4    ,but    
,alexander was not destined to carry out
 his own magnificent project4  ,that was
 left for the general whom he most      
esteemed1 and to whose  personal prowess
 he had once owed his life2 a man than  
whom history knows  few greater1        
,ptolemy1 the son of ,lagus4  ,he was an
 adventurer1 the son of  an adventurer1 
his mother a cast-off concubine of      
,philip of ,macedon4  ,there were those 
who said that he was in reality a son of

 ,philip himself4  ,however1 he rose at 
court1 became a private friend of young 
,alexander1  and at last his            
,somatophylax1 some sort of ,colonel of 
the ,life ,guards4  ,and from thence he 
rose rapidly1 till after his great      
master's death he  found himself despot 
of ,egypt4    ,his face1 as it appears  
on his coins1 is of the loftiest and    
most  ,jove-like type of ,greek beauty4 
,there is a possibility about it1 as    
about most old ,greek faces1 of         
boundless cunning2 a lofty irony too1   
and  a contemptuousness1 especially     
about the mouth1 which puts one in mind 
of  ,goethe's expression2 the face1     
altogether1 of one who knew men too well
  to respect them4  ,at least1 he was a 
man of clear enough vision4  ,he saw    
what was needed in those strange times1 
and he went straight to the thing  which
 he saw4  ,it was his wisdom which      
perceived that the huge amorphous       
empire of ,alexander could not be kept  
together1 and advised its partition     

among the generals1 taking care to      
obtain himself the lion's share2 not  in
 size1 indeed1 but in capability4  ,he  
saw1 too 7what every man does not  see71
 that the only way to keep what he had  
got was to make it better1  and not     
worse1 than he found it4  ,his first    
,egyptian act was to put to  death      
,cleomenes1 ,alexander's lieutenant1 who
 had amassed vast treasures  by         
extortion2 and who was1 moreover1 7for  
,ptolemy was a prudent man7 a  dangerous
 partisan of his great enemy1           
,perdiccas4  ,we do not read that he    
refunded the treasures3 but the         
,egyptians surnamed him ,soter1 the     
,saviour2 and on the whole he deserved  
the title4  ,instead of the wretched    
misrule and slavery of the conquering   
,persian dynasty1 they had at least  law
 and order1 reviving commerce1 and a    
system of administration1 we are  told  
7,i confess to speaking here quite at   
second-hand71 especially  adapted to the
 peculiar caste-society1 and the        

religious prejudices of  ,egypt4  ,but  
,ptolemy's political genius went beyond 
such merely material  and ,warburtonian 
care for the conservation of body and   
goods of his  subjects4  ,he effected   
with complete success a feat which has  
been  attempted1 before and since1 by   
very many princes and potentates1 but   
has  always1 except in ,ptolemy's case1 
proved somewhat of a failure1 namely1   
the making a new deity4  ,mythology in  
general was in a rusty state4  ,the  old
 ,egyptian gods had grown in his        
dominions very unfashionable1 under  the
 summary iconoclasm to which they had   
been subjected by the ,monotheist       
,persians--the ,puritans of the old     
world1 as they have been well called4   
,indeed1 all the dolls1 and the treasure
 of the dolls' temples too1 had  been   
carried off by ,cambyses to ,babylon4   
,and as for the ,greek gods1            
philosophers had sublimed them away     
sadly during the last century3 not to   
mention that ,alexander's ,macedonians1 

during their wanderings over the  world1
 had probably become rather remiss in   
their religious exercises1  and had     
possibly given up mentioning the ,unseen
 world1 except for those  hortatory     
purposes for which it used to be        
employed by ,nelson's veterans4  ,but1  
as ,ptolemy felt1 people 7women         
especially7 must have something  wherein
 to believe4  ,the 8,religious          
,sentiment0 in man must be satisfied4   
,but1 how to do it8 ,how to find a deity
 who would meet the aspirations of      
conquerors as well as conquered--of his 
most irreligious ,macedonians1 as  well 
as of his most religious ,egyptians8    
,it was a great problem3 but  ,ptolemy  
solved it4  ,he seems to have taken the 
same method which ,brindley  the        
engineer used in his perplexities1 for  
he went to bed4  ,and there he  had a   
dream3 ,how the foreign god ,serapis1 of
 ,pontus 7somewhere near this  present  
hapless ,sinope71 appeared to him1 and  
expressed his wish to come  to          

,alexandria1 and there try his influence
 on the ,religious ,sentiment4  ,so     
,serapis was sent for1 and came--at     
least the idol of him1                  
and--accommodating personage6--he       
actually fitted4  ,after he had been    
there  awhile1 he was found to be quite 
an old acquaintance--to be1 in fact1 the
  ,greek ,jove1 and two or three other  
,greek gods1 and also two or three      
,egyptian gods beside--indeed1 to be no 
other than the bull ,apis1 after his    
death and deification4  ,i can tell you 
no more4  ,i never could find that      
anything more was known4  ,you may see  
him among ,greek and ,roman statues  as 
a young man1 with a sort of high        
basket-shaped ,persian turban on his    
head4  ,but1 at least1 he was found so  
pleasant and accommodating a            
conscience-keeper1 that he spread1 with 
,isis1 his newly-found mother1 or  wife1
 over the whole ,east1 and even to      
,rome4  ,the ,consuls there--#ej years  
,b4,c4--found the pair not too          

respectable1 and pulled down their      
temples4  ,but1 so popular were they1 in
 spite of their bad fame1 that seven    
years  after1 the ,triumvirs had to     
build the temples up again elsewhere2   
and  from that time forth1 ,isis and    
,serapis1 in spite1 poor things1 of much
  persecution1 were the fashionable     
deities of the ,roman world4  ,surely   
this ,ptolemy was a man of genius6      
,but ,ptolemy had even more important   
work to do than making gods4  ,he had   
to make men2 for he had few or none     
ready made among his old veterans  from 
,issus and ,arbela4  ,he had no         
hereditary aristocracy3 and he wanted   
none4  ,no aristocracy of wealth2 that  
might grow of itself1 only too fast  for
 his despotic power4  ,but as a despot1 
he must have a knot of men  round him   
who would do his work4  ,and here came  
out his deep insight into  fact4  ,it   
had not escaped that man1 what was the  
secret of ,greek  supremacy4  ,how had  
he come there8  ,how had his great      

master conquered  half the world8  ,how 
had the little semi-barbarous mountain  
tribe up  there in ,pella1 risen under  
,philip to be the master-race of the    
globe8  ,how1 indeed1 had ,xenophon and 
his ,ten ,thousand1 how had the handfuls
 of  ,salamis and ,marathon1 held out   
triumphantly century after century1     
against the vast weight of the          
barbarian8  ,the simple answer was3     
,because  the ,greek has mind1 the      
barbarian mere brute force4  ,because   
mind is the  lord of matter2 because the
 ,greek being the cultivated man1 is the
 only  true man2 the rest are 1 mere    
things1 clods1 tools for the wise       
,greeks' use1 in spite of all their     
material phantom-strength of  elephants1
 and treasures1 and tributaries by the  
million4  ,mind was the  secret of      
,greek power2 and for that ,ptolemy     
would work4  ,he would have an          
aristocracy of intellect2 he would      
gather round him the wise men of the    
world 7glad enough most of them to leave

 that miserable ,greece1 where  every   
man's life was in his hand from hour to 
hour71 and he would develop  to its     
highest the conception of ,philip1 when 
he made ,aristotle the tutor  of his son
 ,alexander4  ,the consequences of that 
attempt were written in  letters of     
blood1 over half the world2 ,ptolemy    
would attempt it once  more1 with       
gentler results4  ,for though he fought 
long1 and often1 and  well1 as ,despot  
of ,egypt1 no less than as general of   
,alexander1 he was  not at heart a man  
of blood1 and made peace the end of all 
his wars4    ,so he begins4  ,aristotle 
is gone3 but in ,aristotle's place      
,philetas the  sweet singer of ,cos1 and
 ,zenodotus the grammarian of ,ephesus1 
shall  educate his favourite son1 and he
 will have a literary court1 and a      
literary age4  ,demetrius ,phalereus1   
the ,admirable ,crichton of his time1   
the last of ,attic orators1 statesman1  
philosopher1 poet1 warrior1 and  each of
 them in the most graceful1 insinuating1

 courtly way1 migrates to  ,alexandria1 
after having had the three hundred and  
sixty statues1 which  the ,athenians had
 too hastily erected to his honour1 as  
hastily pulled  down again4  ,here was a
 prize for ,ptolemy6  ,the charming man 
became his  bosom friend and fellow1    
even revised the laws of his kingdom1   
and fired  him1 if report says true1    
with a mighty thought--no less a one    
than the  great public ,library of      
,alexandria2 the first such institution1
 it is  said1 which the world had ever  
seen4                                   
99 99 99 99 99    ,so a library is begun
 by ,soter1 and organised and completed 
by  ,philadelphus2 or rather two        
libraries1 for while one part was kept  
at the  ,serapeium1 that vast temple on 
the inland rising ground1 of which1 as  
far  as we can discover1 ,pompey's      
,pillar alone remains1 one column out of
 four  hundred1 the rest was in the     
,brucheion adjoining the ,palace and the
  ,museum4  ,philadelphus buys          

,aristotle's collection to add to the   
stock1  and ,euergetes cheats the       
,athenians out of the original ,,mss4 of
 schylus1  ,sophocles1 and ,euripides1  
and adds largely to it by more honest   
methods4  ,eumenes1 ,king of ,pergamus  
in ,asia ,minor1 fired with emulation1  
commences  a similar collection1 and is 
so successful1 that the reigning        
,ptolemy has  to cut off his rival's    
supplies by prohibiting the exportation 
of  papyrus2 and the ,pergamenian books 
are henceforth transcribed on           
parchment1 parchemin1 ,pergamene1 which 
thus has its name to this day1  from    
,pergamus4  ,that collection1 too1 found
 its way at last to  ,alexandria4  ,for 
,antony having become possessor of it by
 right of the  stronger1 gave it to     
,cleopatra2 and it remained at          
,alexandria for seven  hundred years4   
,but we must not anticipate events4     
,then there must be besides a ,mouseion1
 a ,temple of the ,muses1 with all  due 
appliances1 in a vast building adjoining

 the palace itself1 under the  very wing
 of royalty2 and it must have porticos1 
wherein sages may  converse2            
lecture-rooms1 where they may display   
themselves at their will  to their rapt 
scholars1 each like a turkey-cock before
 his brood2 and a  large dining-hall1   
where they may enjoy themselves in      
moderation1 as  befits sages1 not       
without puns and repartees1 epigrams1   
anagrams1 and  ,attic salt1 to be fatal1
 alas1 to poor ,diodorus the            
dialectician4  ,for  ,stilpo1 prince of 
sophists1 having silenced him by some   
quibbling puzzle  of logic1 ,ptolemy    
surnamed him ,chronos the ,slow4  ,poor 
,diodorus went  home1 took pen and ink1 
wrote a treatise on the awful nothing1  
and died  in despair1 leaving five      
8dialectical daughters0 behind him1 to  
be thorns  in the sides of some five    
hapless men of ,macedonia1 as           
8emancipated  women20 a class but too   
common in the later days of ,greece1 as 
they will  always be1 perhaps1 in       

civilisations which are decaying and    
crumbling to  pieces1 leaving their     
members to seek in bewilderment what    
they are1 and  what bonds connect them  
with their fellow-beings4  ,but to      
return3 funds  shall be provided for the
 ,museum from the treasury2 a priest of 
rank1  appointed by royalty1 shall be   
curator2 botanical and zoological       
gardens  shall be attached2 collections 
of wonders made4  ,in all things the    
presiding genius of ,aristotle shall be 
worshipped2 for these1 like  ,alexander1
 were his pupils4  ,had he not mapped   
out all heaven and earth1  things seen  
and unseen1 with his entelechies1 and   
energies1 and dunameis1  and put every  
created and uncreated thing henceforth  
into its proper  place1 from the        
ascidians and polypes of the sea to the 
virtues and the  vices--yea1 to that    
,great ,deity and ,prime ,cause 7which  
indeed was all  things71 ,noesis        
,noeseon1 8the ,thought of ,thoughts10  
whom he discovered  by irrefragable     

processes of logic1 and in whom the     
philosophers believe  privately1 leaving
 ,serapis to the women and the sailors8 
,all they had to  do was to follow in   
his steps2 to take each of them a       
branch1 of science  or literature1 or as
 many branches as one man conveniently  
can2 and  working them out on the       
approved methods1 end in a few years1 as
  ,alexander did1 by weeping on the     
utmost shore of creation that there are 
no more worlds left to conquer4         
,alas6 the ,muses are shy and wild2 and 
though they will haunt1 like  skylarks1 
on the bleakest northern moor as        
cheerfully as on the sunny  hills of    
,greece1 and rise thence singing into   
the heaven of heavens1 yet  they are    
hard to tempt into a gilded cage1       
however amusingly made and  plentifully 
stored with comforts4  ,royal societies1
 associations of  savants1 and the like1
 are good for many things1 but not for  
the breeding  of art and genius3 for    
they are things which cannot be bred4   

,such  institutions are excellent for   
physical science1 when1 as among us now1
  physical science is going on the right
 method3 but where1 as in  ,alexandria1 
it was going on an utterly wrong method1
 they stereotype the  errors of the age1
 and invest them with the prestige of   
authority1 and  produce mere ,sorbonnes1
 and schools of pedants4  ,to           
literature1 too1 they  do some good1    
that is1 in a literary age--an age of   
reflection rather than  of production1  
of antiquarian research1 criticism1     
imitation1 when  book-making has become 
an easy and respectable pursuit for the 
many who  cannot dig1 and are ashamed to
 beg4  ,and yet1 by adding that same    
prestige of authority1 not to mention of
 good society and ,court favour1  to the
 popular mania for literature1 they help
 on the growing evil1 and  increase the 
multitude of prophets who prophesy out  
of their own heart  and have seen       
nothing4    ,and this was1 it must be   
said1 the outcome of all the ,ptoleman  

appliances4    ,in ,physics they did    
little4  ,in ,art nothing4  ,in         
,metaphysics less than  nothing4    ,we 
will first examine1 as the more pleasant
 spectacle of the two1 that  branch of  
thought in which some progress was      
really made1 and in which  the          
,ptolemaic schools helped forward the   
development of men who have  become     
world-famous1 and will remain so1 ,i    
suppose1 until the end of  time4        
,four names at once attract us3 ,euclid1
 ,aristarchus1 ,eratosthenes1           
,hipparchus4  ,archimedes1 also1 should 
be included in the list1 for he was  a  
pupil of the ,alexandrian school1 having
 studied 7if ,proclus is to be  trusted7
 in ,egypt1 under ,conon the ,samian1   
during the reigns of two  ,ptolemies1   
,philadelphus and ,euergetes4    ,of    
,euclid1 as the founder 7according to   
,proclus7 of the ,alexandrian           
,mathematical school1 ,i must of course 
speak first4  ,those who wish to  attain
 to a juster conception of the man and  

his work than they can do  from any     
other source1 will do well to read      
,professor ,de ,morgan's  admirable     
article on him in 8,smith's ,classical  
,dictionary20 which  includes1 also1 a  
valuable little sketch of the rise of   
,geometric  science1 from ,pythagoras   
and ,plato1 of whose school ,euclid was1
 to the  great master himself4    ,i    
shall confine myself to one observation 
on ,euclid's genius1 and on the  immense
 influence which it exerted on after    
generations4  ,it seems to me1  speaking
 under correction1 that it exerted this1
 because it was so  complete a type of  
the general tendency of the ,greek mind1
 deductive1  rather than inductive2 of  
unrivalled subtlety in obtaining results
 from  principles1 and results again    
from them ad infinitum3 deficient in    
that  sturdy moral patience which is    
required for the examination of facts1  
and  which has made ,britain at once a  
land of practical craftsmen1 and of     
earnest scientific discoverers4         

,volatile1 restless1 8always children   
longing for something new10 as the      
,egyptian priest said of them1 they were
 too ready to believe that they  had    
attained laws1 and then1 tired with     
their toy1 throw away those  hastily    
assumed laws1 and wander off in search  
of others4  ,gifted1 beyond  all the    
sons of men1 with the most exquisite    
perception of form1 both  physical and  
metaphysical1 they could become         
geometers and logicians as  they became 
sculptors and artists2 beyond that they 
could hardly rise4  ,the were conscious 
of their power to build2 and it made    
them ashamed to  dig4    ,four men only 
among them seem1 as far as ,i can judge1
 to have had a great  inductive power3  
,socrates and ,plato in ,metaphysics2   
,archimedes and  ,hipparchus in         
,physics4  ,but these men ran so far    
counter to the national  genius1 that   
their examples were not followed4  ,as  
you will hear  presently1 the           
discoveries of ,archimedes and          

,hipparchus were allowed to  remain     
where they were for centuries4  ,the    
,dialectic of ,plato and  ,socrates was 
degraded into a mere art for making     
anything appear  alternately true and   
false1 and among the ,megaric school1   
for undermining  the ground of all      
science1 and paving the way for         
scepticism1 by denying  the natural     
world to be the object of certain       
knowledge4  ,the only  element of       
,plato's thought to which they clung    
was1 as we shall find from  the         
,neoplatonists1 his physical            
speculations2 in which1 deserting his   
inductive method1 he has fallen below   
himself into the popular cacoethes1  and
 ,pythagorean deductive dreams about the
 mysterious powers of numbers1  and of  
the regular solids4    ,such a people1  
when they took to studying physical     
science1 would be1 and  in fact were1   
incapable of ,chemistry1 ,geognosy1     
,comparative ,anatomy1 or  any of that  
noble choir of sister sciences1 which   

are now building up the  material as    
well as the intellectual glory of       
,britain4    ,to ,astronomy1 on the     
other hand1 the pupils of ,euclid turned
 naturally1  as to the science which    
required the greatest amount of their   
favourite  geometry3 but even that they 
were content to let pass from its       
inductive  to its deductive stage--not  
as we have done now1 after two centuries
 of  inductive search for the true laws1
 and their final discovery by ,kepler   
and ,newton3 but as soon as ,hipparchus 
had propounded any theory which  would  
do instead of the true laws1 content    
there to stop their  experiments1 and   
return to their favourite work of       
commenting1 deducing1  spinning notion  
out of notion1 ad infinitum4    ,still1 
they were not all of this temper4  ,had 
they been1 they would have  discovered1 
not merely a little1 but absolutely     
nothing4  ,for after all1  if we will   
consider1 induction being the right path
 to knowledge1 every  man1 whether he   

knows it or not1 uses induction1 more or
 less1 by the  mere fact of his having a
 human reason1 and knowing anything at  
all2 as  ,m4 ,jourdain talked prose all 
his life without being aware of it4     
,aristarchus is principally famous for  
his attempt to discover the  distance of
 the sun as compared with that of the   
moon4  ,his method was  ingenious       
enough1 but too rough for success1 as it
 depended principally  on the belief    
that the line bounding the bright part  
of the moon was an  exact straight line4
  ,the result was of course erroneous4  
,he concluded  that the sun was #ah     
times as far as the moon1 and not1 as we
 now know1  #djj2 but his conclusion1   
like his conception of the vast extent  
of the  sphere of the fixed stars1 was  
far enough in advance of the popular    
doctrine to subject him1 according to   
,plutarch1 to a charge of impiety4      
,eratosthenes1 again1 contributed his   
mite to the treasure of human           
science--his one mite2 and yet by that  

he is better known than by all the      
volumes which he seems to have poured   
out1 on ,ethics1 ,chronology1           
,criticism on the ,old ,attic ,comedy1  
and what not1 spun out of his weary     
brain during a long life of research and
 meditation4  ,they have all            
perished1--like ninety-nine hundredths  
of the labours of that great  literary  
age2 and perhaps the world is no poorer 
for the loss4  ,but one  thing1 which he
 attempted on a sound and practical     
philosophic method1  stands1 and will   
stand for ever4  ,and after all1 is not 
that enough to  have lived for8 to have 
found out one true thing1 and1          
therefore1 one  imperishable thing1 in  
one's life8  ,if each one of us could   
but say when  he died3 8,this one thing 
,i have found out2 this one thing ,i    
have proved  to be possible2 this one   
eternal fact ,i have rescued from ,hela1
 the realm  of the formless and         
unknown10 how rich one such generation  
might make the  world for ever6    ,but 

such is not the appointed method4  ,the 
finders are few and far  between1       
because the true seekers are few and far
 between2 and a whole  generation has   
often nothing to show for its existence 
but one solitary  gem which some one    
man--often unnoticed in his time--has   
picked up for  them1 and so given them  
8a local habitation and a name40        
,eratosthenes had heard that in ,syene1 
in ,upper ,egypt1 deep wells were       
enlightened to the bottom on the day of 
the summer solstice1 and that  vertical 
objects cast no shadows4    ,he had     
before suggested1 as is supposed1 to    
,ptolemy ,euergetes1 to make  him the   
two great copper armill1 or circles for 
determining the equinox1  which stood   
for centuries in 8that which is called  
the ,square  ,porch0--probably somewhere
 in the ,museum4  ,by these he had      
calculated the  obliquity of the        
ecliptic1 closely enough to serve for a 
thousand years  after4  ,that was one   
work done4  ,but what had the ,syene    

shadows to do  with that8  ,syene must  
be under that ecliptic4  ,on the edge of
 it4  ,in  short1 just under the tropic4
  ,now he had ascertained exactly the   
latitude of one place on the earth's    
surface4  ,he had his known point  from 
whence to start on a world-journey1 and 
he would use it2 he would  calculate the
 circumference of the earth--and he did 
it4  ,by observations  made at          
,alexandria1 he ascertained its latitude
 compared with that of  ,syene2 and so  
ascertained what proportion to the whole
 circumference was  borne by the #ejjj  
stadia between ,alexandria and ,syene4  
,he fell into an  error1 by supposing   
,alexandria and ,syene to be under the  
same meridians  of longitude3 but that  
did not prevent his arriving at a fair  
rough  result of #beb1jjj               
stadia--#ca1ejj ,roman miles2           
considerably too much2 but  still1      
before him1 ,i suppose1 none knew       
whether it was #aj1jjj1 or  #aj1jjj1jjj4
  ,the right method having once been    

found1 nothing remained  but to employ  
it more accurately4    ,one other great 
merit of ,eratosthenes is1 that he first
 raised ,geography  to the rank of a    
science4  ,his ,geographica were an     
organic collection1  the first the world
 had ever seen1 of all the travels and  
books of  earth-description heaped      
together in the ,great ,library1 of     
which he was  for many years the keeper4
  ,he began with a geognostic book1     
touched on  the traces of ,cataclysms   
and ,change visible on the earth's      
surface2  followed by two books1 one a  
mathematical book1 the other on         
political  geography1 and completed by a
 map--which one would like to see3      
but--not a  trace of all remains1 save a
 few quoted fragments--                 
,we are such stuff     ,as dreams are   
made of4    ,but if ,eratosthenes had   
hold of eternal fact and law on one     
point1 there  was a contemporary who had
 hold of it in more than one4  ,i mean  
,archimedes2 of whom1 as ,i have said1  

we must speak as of an ,alexandrian4    
,it was as a mechanician1 rather than as
 an astronomer1 that he gained his      
reputation4  ,the stories of his        
,hydraulic ,screw1 the ,great ,ship     
which he  built for ,hiero1 and launched
 by means of machinery1 his crane1 his  
war-engines1 above all his somewhat     
mythical arrangement of mirrors1 by     
which he set fire to ships in the       
harbour--all these1 like the story of   
his detecting the alloy in ,hiero's     
crown1 while he himself was in the      
bath1 and running home undressed        
shouting --all these are  schoolboys'   
tales4  ,to the thoughtful person it is 
the method of the man  which constitutes
 his real greatness1 that power of      
insight by which he  solved the two     
great problems of the nature of the     
lever and of  hydrostatic pressure1     
which form the basis of all static and  
hydrostatic  science to this day4  ,and 
yet on that very question of the lever  
the  great mind of ,aristotle           

babbles--neither sees the thing itself1 
nor the  way towards seeing it4  ,but   
since ,archimedes spoke1 the thing seems
  self-evident to every schoolboy4      
,there is something to me very solemn in
  such a fact as this4  ,it brings us   
down to some of the very deepest        
questions of metaphysic4  ,this mental  
insight of which we boast so much1  what
 is it8  ,is it altogether a process of 
our own brain and will8  ,if it  be1 why
 have so few the power1 even among men  
of power1 and they so  seldom8  ,if     
brain alone were what was wanted1 what  
could not ,aristotle  have discovered8  
,or is it that no man can see a thing   
unless ,god shows  it him8  ,is it that 
in each separate act of induction1 that 
mysterious  and transcendental process  
which cannot1 let logicians try as they 
will1  be expressed by any merely       
logical formula1 ,aristotelian or       
other--is it ,i  say1 that in each      
separate act of induction we do not find
 the law1 but  the law is shown to us1  

by ,him who made the law8 ,bacon thought
 so4  ,of  that you may find clear proof
 in his writings4  ,may not ,bacon be   
right8  ,may it not be true that ,god   
does in science1 as well as in ethics1  
hide  things from the wise and prudent1 
from the proud1 complete1               
self-contained systematiser like        
,aristotle1 who must needs explain all  
things in heaven and earth by his own   
formul1 and his entelechies and         
energies1 and the rest of the notions   
which he has made for himself out  of   
his own brain1 and then pack each thing 
away in its proper niche in  his great  
cloud-universe of conceptions8  ,is it  
that ,god hides things  from such men   
many a time1 and reveals them to babes1 
to gentle1  affectionate1 simple-hearted
 men1 such as we know ,archimedes to    
have  been1 who do not try to give an   
explanation for a fact1 but feel how    
awful and divine it is1 and wrestle     
reverently and stedfastly with it1 as   
,jacob with the ,angel1 and will not let

 it go1 until it bless them8  ,sure  ,i 
am1 from what ,i have seen of scientific
 men1 that there is an intimate         
connection between the health of the    
moral faculties and the health of  the  
inductive ones2 and that the proud1     
self-conceited1 and passionate  man will
 see nothing3 perhaps because nothing   
will be shown him4    ,but we must leave
 ,archimedes for a man not perhaps so   
well known1 but to  whom we owe as much 
as to the great ,syracusan--,hipparchus 
the astronomer4  ,to his case much which
 ,i have just said applies4  ,in him    
astronomic  science seemed to awaken    
suddenly to a true inductive method1 and
 after  him to fall into its old slumber
 for #cjj years4  ,in the meantime      
,timocharis1 ,aristyllus1 and ,conon had
 each added their mites to the          
discoveries of ,eratosthenes3 but to    
,hipparchus we owe that theory of the   
heavens1 commonly called the ,ptolemaic 
system1 which1 starting from the        
assumption that the earth was the centre

 of the universe1 attempted to  explain 
the motions of the heavenly bodies by a 
complex system of  supposed eccentrics  
and epicycles4  ,this has of course now 
vanished  before modern discoveries4    
,but its value as a scientific attempt  
lies in  this3 that the method being a  
correct one1 correct results were       
obtained1  though starting from a false 
assumption2 and ,hipparchus and his     
successors were enabled by it to        
calculate and predict the changes of the
  heavens1 in spite of their clumsy     
instruments1 with almost as much        
accuracy as we do now4    ,for the      
purpose of working out this theory he   
required a science of  trigonometry1    
plane and spherical3 and this he        
accordingly seems to have  invented4    
,to him also we owe the discovery of    
that vast gradual change  in the        
position of the fixed stars1 in fact1 of
 the whole celestial  system1 now known 
by the name of the precession of the    
equinoxes2 the  first great catalogue of

 fixed stars1 to the number of #ajhj2   
attempts to  ascertain whether the      
length of years and days were constant2 
with which1  with his characteristic    
love of truth1 he seems to have been    
hardly  satisfied4  ,he too invented the
 planisphere1 or mode of representing   
the  starry heavens upon a plane1 and is
 the father of true geography1 having   
formed the happy notion of mapping out  
the earth1 as well as the heavens1  by  
degrees of latitude and longitude4      
,strange it is1 and somewhat sad1 that  
we should know nothing of this  great   
man1 should be hardly able to           
distinguish him from others of the  same
 name1 but through the works of a       
commentator1 who wrote and observed  in 
,alexandria #cjj years after1 during the
 age of the ,antonines4  ,i mean1  of   
course1 the famous ,ptolemy1 whose name 
so long bore the honour of that  system 
which really belonged to ,hipparchus4   
,this single fact speaks volumes for the
 real weakness of the great  artificial 

school of literature and science founded
 by the kings of  ,egypt4  ,from the    
father of ,astronomy1 as ,delambre calls
 him1 to ,ptolemy1  the first man who   
seems really to have appreciated him1 we
 have not a  discovery1 hardly an       
observation or a name1 to fill the gap4 
,physical  sages there were2 but they   
were geometers and mathematicians1      
rather than  astronomic observers and   
inquirers4  ,and in spite of all the    
huge  appliances and advantages of that 
great ,museum1 its inhabitants were     
content1 in physical science1 as in all 
other branches of thought1 to  comment1 
to expound1 to do everything but open   
their eyes and observe  facts1 and learn
 from them1 as the predecessors whom    
they pretended to  honour had done4     
,but so it is always4  ,a genius1 an    
original man  appears4  ,he puts himself
 boldly in contact with facts1 asks them
 what  they mean1 and writes down their 
answer for the world's use4  ,and then  
his disciples must needs form a school1 

and a system2 and fancy that they  do   
honour to their master by refusing to   
follow in his steps2 by making  his book
 a fixed dogmatic canon2 attaching to it
 some magical  infallibility2 declaring 
the very lie which he disproved by his  
whole  existence1 that discovery is     
henceforth impossible1 and the sum of   
knowledge complete3 instead of going on 
to discover as he discovered  before    
them1 and in following his method1 show 
that they honour him1 not  in the       
letter1 but in spirit and in truth4     
,for this1 if you will consider1 is the 
true meaning of that great  command1    
8,honour thy father and mother1 that thy
 days may be long in the  land40  ,on   
reverence for the authority of bygone   
generations depends the  permanence of  
every form of thought or belief1 as much
 as of all social1  national1 and family
 life3 but on reverence of the spirit1  
not merely of  the letter2 of the       
methods of our ancestors1 not merely of 
their  conclusions4  ,ay1 and we shall  

not be able to preserve their           
conclusions1  not even to understand    
them2 they will die away on our lips    
into skeleton  notions1 and soulless    
phrases1 unless we see that the         
greatness of the  mighty dead has always
 consisted in this1 that they were      
seekers1  improvers1 inventors1 endued  
with that divine power and right of     
discovery which has been bestowed on us1
 even as on them2 unless we  become such
 men as they were1 and go on to         
cultivate and develop the  precious     
heritage which they have bequeathed to  
us1 instead of hiding  their talent in a
 napkin and burying it in the earth2    
making their  greatness an excuse for   
our own littleness1 their industry for  
our  laziness1 their faith for our      
despair2 and prating about the old      
paths1  while we forget that paths were 
made that men might walk in them1 and   
not  stand still1 and try in vain to    
stop the way4    ,it may be said1       
certainly1 as an excuse for these       

,alexandrian ,greeks1  that they were a 
people in a state of old age and decay2 
and that they  only exhibited the common
 and natural faults of old age4  ,for as
 with  individuals1 so with races1      
nations1 societies1 schools of          
thought--youth  is the time of free     
fancy and poetry2 manhood of calm and   
strong  induction2 old age of deduction1
 when men settle down upon their lees1  
and content themselves with reaffirming 
and verifying the conclusions of  their 
earlier years1 and too often1 alas6 with
 denying and anathematising  all        
conclusions which have been arrived at  
since their own meridian4  ,it  is sad3 
but it is patent and common4  ,it is sad
 to think that the day may  come to each
 of us1 when we shall have ceased to    
hope for discovery and  for progress2   
when a thing will seem  priori false to 
us1 simply  because it is new2 and we   
shall be saying querulously to the      
,divine ,light  which lightens every man
 who comes into the world3 8,hitherto   

shalt thou  come1 and no further4  ,thou
 hast taught men enough2 yea rather1    
thou hast  exhausted thine own          
infinitude1 and hast no more to teach   
them40  ,surely  such a temper is to be 
fought against1 prayed against1 both in 
ourselves1  and in the generation in    
which we live4  ,surely there is no     
reason why  such a temper should        
overtake old age4  ,there may be reason 
enough1 8in  the nature of things40     
,for that which is of nature is born    
only to decay  and die4  ,but in man    
there is more than dying nature2 there  
is spirit1  and a capability of         
spiritual and everlasting life1 which   
renews its  youth like the eagle's1 and 
goes on from strength to strength1 and  
which1  if it have its autumns and its  
winters1 has no less its ever-recurring 
springs and summers2 if it has its      
,sabbaths1 finds in them only rest and  
refreshment for coming labour4  ,and why
 not in nations1 societies1  scientific 
schools8  ,these too are not merely     

natural3 they are  spiritual1 and are   
only living and healthy in as far as    
they are in  harmony with spiritual1    
unseen1 and everlasting laws of ,god4   
,may not  they1 too1 have a capability  
of everlasting life1 as long as they    
obey  those laws in faith1 and patience1
 and humility8  ,we cannot deny the     
analogy between the individual man and  
these societies of men4  ,we  cannot1 at
 least1 deny the analogy between them in
 growth1 decay1 and  death4  ,may we not
 have hope that it holds good also for  
that which can  never die2 and that if  
they do die1 as this old ,greek society 
did1 it is  by no brute natural         
necessity1 but by their own             
unfaithfulness to that  which they knew1
 to that which they ought to have known8
  ,it is always  more hopeful1 always1  
as ,i think1 more philosophic1 to throw 
the blame of  failure on man1 on our own
 selves1 rather than on ,god1 and the   
perfect  law of ,his universe4  ,at     
least let us be sure for ourselves1 that

 such an  old age as befell this ,greek 
society1 as befalls many a man nowadays1
  need not be our lot4  ,let us be sure 
that earth shows no fairer sight  than  
the old man1 whose worn-out brain and   
nerves make it painful1 and  perhaps    
impossible1 to produce fresh thought    
himself3 but who can yet  welcome       
smilingly and joyfully the fresh        
thoughts of others2 who keeps  unwearied
 his faith in ,god's government of the  
universe1 in ,god's  continual education
 of the human race2 who draws around him
 the young and  the sanguine1 not merely
 to check their rashness by his wise    
cautions1  but to inspirit their sloth  
by the memories of his own past         
victories2  who hands over1 without envy
 or repining1 the lamp of truth to      
younger  runners than himself1 and sits 
contented by1 bidding the new generation
  ,god speed along the paths untrodden  
by him1 but seen afar off by faith4  ,a 
few such old persons have ,i seen1 both 
men and women2 in whom the young  heart 

beat pure and fresh1 beneath the        
cautious and practised brain of  age1   
and gray hairs which were indeed a crown
 of glory4  ,a few such have  ,i seen2  
and from them ,i seemed to learn what   
was the likeness of our  ,father who is 
in heaven4  ,to such an old age may ,he 
bring you and me1 and  all for whom we  
are bound to pray4          ,,lecture   
,,ii4  ,,the ,,ptolemaic ,,era4         
7,continued47      ,i ,,said in my first
 ,lecture1 that even if royal influence 
be profitable  for the prosecution of   
physical science1 it cannot be          
profitable for art4  ,it can only       
produce a literary age1 as it did in the
 ,ptolemaic era2 a  generation of       
innumerable court-poets1 artificial     
epigrammatists1  artificial idyllists1  
artificial dramatists and epicists2     
above all1 a  generation of critics4    
,or rather shall we say1 that the       
dynasty was not  the cause of a literary
 age1 but only its correlative8  ,that  
when the old  ,greeks lost the power of 

being free1 of being anything but the   
slaves of  oriental despots1 as the     
,ptolemies in reality were1 they lost   
also the  power of producing true works 
of art2 because they had lost that      
youthful  vigour of mind from which both
 art and freedom sprang8 ,let the case  
be as  it will1 ,alexandrian literature 
need not detain us long--though1 alas6  
it  has detained every boy who ever     
trembled over his ,greek grammar1 for   
many  a weary year2 and1 ,i cannot help 
suspecting1 has been the main cause that
  so many young men who have spent seven
 years in learning ,greek1 know  nothing
 about it at the end of the seven4  ,for
 ,i must say1 that as far as  we can    
see1 these ,alexandrian pedants were    
thorough pedants2 very  polished and    
learned gentlemen1 no doubt1 and1 like  
,callimachus1 the pets  of princes3 but 
after all1 men who thought that they    
could make up for  not writing great    
works themselves1 by showing1 with      
careful analysis and  commentation1 how 

men used to write them of old1 or rather
 how they  fancied men used to write    
them2 for1 consider1 if they had really 
known  how the thing was done1 they must
 needs have been able to do it          
themselves4  ,thus ,callimachus1 the    
favourite of ,ptolemy ,philadelphus1 and
  librarian of his ,museum1 is the most 
distinguished grammarian1 critic1  and  
poet of his day1 and has for pupils     
,eratosthenes1 ,apollonius ,rhodius1    
,aristophanes of ,byzantium1 and a      
goodly list more4  ,he is an encyclopdia
  in himself4  ,there is nothing the man
 does not know1 or probably1 if we      
spoke more correctly1 nothing he does   
not know about4  ,he writes on  history1
 on the ,museum1 on barbarous names1 on 
the wonders of the world1  on public    
games1 on colonisation1 on winds1 on    
birds1 on the rivers of  the world1     
and--ominous subject--a sort of         
comprehensive history of ,greek         
literature1 with a careful              
classification of all authors1 each     

under his  own heading4  ,greek         
literature was rather in the sere and   
yellow leaf1 be  sure1 when men thought 
of writing that sort of thing about it4 
,but  still1 he is an encyclopdic man1  
and1 moreover1 a poet4  ,he writes an   
epic1 8,aitia10 in four books1 on the   
causes of the myths1 religious          
ceremonies1 and so forth--an ominous    
sign for the myths also1 and the  belief
 in them2 also a ,hecate1 ,galata1      
,glaucus--four epics1 besides  comedies1
 tragedies1 iambics1 choriambics1       
elegies1 hymns1 epigrams                
seventy-three--and of these last alone  
can we say that they are in any  degree 
readable2 and they are courtly1         
far-fetched1 neat1 and that is  all4    
,six hymns remain1 and a few fragments  
of the elegies3 but the most  famous    
elegy1 on ,berenice's hair1 is preserved
 to us only in a ,latin  paraphrase of  
,catullus4  ,it is curious1 as the      
earliest instance we have  of genuinely 
ungenuine ,court poetry1 and of the     

complimentary lie which  does not even  
pretend to be true2 the flattery which  
will not take the  trouble to prevent   
your seeing that it is laughing in your 
face4    ,berenice the queen1 on        
,ptolemy's departure to the wars1 vows  
her  beautiful tresses to her favourite 
goddess1 as the price of her husband's  
safe return2 and duly pays her vow4     
,the hair is hung up in the temple3  in 
a day or two after it has vanished4     
,dire is the wrath of ,ptolemy1 the     
consternation of the priests1 the       
scandal to religion2 when ,conon1 the   
court-astronomer1 luckily searching the 
heavens1 finds the missing  tresses in  
an utterly unexpected place--as a new   
constellation of stars1  which to this  
day bears the title of ,coma ,berenices4
  ,it is so convenient  to believe the  
fact1 that everybody believes it        
accordingly2 and  ,callimachus writes an
 elegy thereon1 in which the            
constellified1 or  indeed deified       
tresses1 address in most melodious and  

highly-finished  ,greek1 bedizened with 
concetto on concetto1 that fair and     
sacred head  whereon they grew1 to be   
shorn from which is so dire a sorrow1   
that  apotheosis itself can hardly      
reconcile them to the parting4          
,worthy1 was not all this1 of the       
descendants of the men who fought at    
,marathon and ,thermopyl8  ,the old     
,greek civilisation was rotting swiftly 
down2 while a fire of ,god was          
preparing1 slowly and dimly1 in that    
unnoticed ,italian town of ,rome1 which 
was destined to burn up that dead       
world1 and all its works4               
,callimachus's hymns1 those may read who
 list4  ,they are highly finished       
enough2 the work of a man who knew      
thoroughly what sort of article he      
intended to make1 and what were the most
 approved methods of making it4         
,curious and cumbrous mythological lore 
comes out in every other line4  ,the    
smartness1 the fine epithets1 the       
recondite conceits1 the bits of  effect1

 are beyond all praise2 but as for one  
spark of life1 of poetry1  of real      
belief1 you will find none2 not even in 
that famous ,lavacrum  ,palladis which  
,angelo ,poliziano thought worth        
translating into ,latin  elegiacs1 about
 the same time that the learned         
,florentine1 ,antonio ,maria  ,salviano1
 found ,berenice's ,hair worthy to be   
paraphrased back from  ,catullus' ,latin
 into ,greek1 to give the world some    
faint notion of the  inestimable and    
incomparable original4  ,they must have 
had much time on  their hands4  ,but at 
the ,revival of ,letters1 as was to be  
expected1 all  works of the ancients1   
good and bad1 were devoured alike with  
youthful  eagerness by the ,medicis and 
the ,popes2 and it was not1 we shall    
see1 for  more than one century after1  
that men's taste got sufficiently       
matured to  distinguish between         
,callimachus and the ,homeric hymns1 or 
between ,plato  and ,proclus4  ,yet     
,callimachus and his fellows had an     

effect on the world4  ,his writings1 as 
well as those of ,philetas1 were the    
model on which ,ovid1  ,propertius1     
,tibullus1 formed themselves4    ,and so
 ,i leave him1 with two hints4  ,if any 
one wishes to see the justice  of my    
censure1 let him read one of the        
,alexandrian hymns1 and immediately     
after it1 one of those glorious old     
,homeric hymns to the very same         
deities2 let him contrast the insincere 
and fulsome idolatry of  ,callimachus   
with the reverent1 simple and manful    
anthropomorphism of the  ,homerist--and 
let him form his own judgment4    ,the  
other hint is this4  ,if ,callimachus1  
the founder of ,alexandrian  literature1
 be such as he is1 what are his pupils  
likely to become1 at  least without some
 infusion of healthier blood1 such as in
 the case of  his ,roman imitators      
produced a new and not altogether       
ignoble school8    ,of ,lycophron1 the  
fellow-grammarian and poet of           
,callimachus1 we have  nothing left but 

the ,cassandra1 a long iambic poem1     
stuffed with  traditionary learning1 and
 so obscure1 that it obtained for him   
the  surname of 1 the dark one4  ,i have
 tried in vain to read it3  you1 if you 
will1 may do the same4    ,philetas1 the
 remaining member of the ,alexandrian   
,triad1 seems to have  been a more      
simple1 genial1 and graceful spirit than
 the other two1 to  whom he was         
accordingly esteemed inferior4  ,only a 
few fragments are  left2 but he was not 
altogether without his influence1 for he
 was1 as ,i  have just said1 one of the 
models on which ,propertius and ,ovid   
formed  themselves2 and some1 indeed1   
call him the ,father of the ,latin      
elegy1  with its terseness1 grace1 and  
clear epigrammatic form of thought1 and1
  therefore1 in a great degree1 of our  
modern eighteenth century poets2 not  a 
useless excellence1 seeing that it is1  
on the whole1 good for him who  writes  
to see clearly what he wants to say1 and
 to be able to make his  readers see it 

clearly also4  ,and yet one natural     
strain is heard amid  all this          
artificial jingle--that of ,theocritus4 
,it is not altogether  ,alexandrian4    
,its sweetest notes were learnt amid the
 chestnut groves and  orchards1 the     
volcanic glens and sunny pastures of    
,sicily2 but the  intercourse1 between  
the courts of ,hiero and the ,ptolemies 
seems to have  been continual4  ,poets  
and philosophers moved freely from one  
to the  other1 and found a like         
atmosphere in both2 and in one of       
,theocritus'  idyls1 two ,sicilian      
gentlemen1 crossed in love1 agree to    
sail for  ,alexandria1 and volunteer    
into the army of the great and good king
  ,ptolemy1 of whom a sketch is given   
worth reading2 as a man noble1          
generous1 and stately1 8knowing well who
 loves him1 and still better who  loves 
him not40  ,he has another encomium on  
,ptolemy1 more laboured1  though not    
less interesting3 but the real value of 
,theocritus lies in his  power of       

landscape-painting4    ,one can well    
conceive the delight which his idyls    
must have given to  those dusty         
,alexandrians1 pent up forever between  
sea and sand-hills1  drinking the       
tank-water1 and never hearing the sound 
of a running  stream--whirling1 too1    
forever1 in all the bustle and intrigue 
of a great  commercial and literary     
city4  ,refreshing indeed it must have  
been to  them to hear of those simple   
joys and simple sorrows of the ,sicilian
  shepherd1 in a land where toil was but
 exercise1 and mere existence was       
enjoyment4  ,to them1 and to us also4   
,i believe ,theocritus is one of the    
poets who will never die4  ,he sees men 
and things1 in his own light way1       
truly2 and he describes them simply1    
honestly1 with little careless  touches 
of pathos and humour1 while he floods   
his whole scene with that  gorgeous     
,sicilian air1 like one of ,titian's    
pictures2 with still  sunshine1         
whispering pines1 the lizard sleeping on

 the wall1 and the  sunburnt cicala     
shrieking on the spray1 the pears and   
apples dropping  from the orchard bough1
 the goats clambering from crag to crag 
after the  cistus and the thyme1 the    
brown youths and wanton lasses singing  
under  the dark chestnut boughs1 or by  
the leafy arch of some                  
,grot nymph-haunted1     ,garlanded over
 with vine1 and acanthus1 and clambering
 roses1     ,cool in the fierce still   
noon1 where the streams glance clear in 
the     moss-beds2    and here and      
there1 beyond the braes and meads1 blue 
glimpses of the  far-off summer sea2 and
 all this told in a language and a metre
 which  shapes itself almost            
unconsciously1 wave after wave1 into the
 most  luscious song4  ,doubt not that  
many a soul then1 was the simpler1 and  
purer1 and better1 for reading the sweet
 singer of ,syracuse4  ,he has his      
immoralities2 but they are the          
immoralities of his age3 his            
naturalness1  his sunny calm and        

cheerfulness1 are all his own4    ,and  
now1 to leave the poets1 and speak of   
those grammarians to whose  corrections 
we owe1 ,i suppose1 the texts of the    
,greek poets as they now  stand4  ,they 
seem to have set to work at their task  
methodically enough1  under the         
direction of their most literary        
monarch1 ,ptolemy ,philadelphus4        
,alexander the tolian collected and     
revised the tragedies1 ,lycophron the   
comedies1 ,zenodotus the poems of       
,homer1 and the other poets of the ,epic
  cycle1 now lost to us4  ,whether      
,homer prospered under all his          
expungings1  alterations1 and           
transpositions--whether1 in fact1 he did
 not treat ,homer  very much as ,bentley
 wanted to treat ,milton1 is a suspicion
 which one has  a right to entertain1   
though it is long past the possibility  
of proof4  ,let that be as it may1 the  
critical business grew and prospered4   
,aristophanes of ,byzantium wrote       
glossaries and grammars1 collected      

editions of ,plato and ,aristotle1      
sthetic disquisitions on ,homer--one    
wishes they were preserved1 for the sake
 of the jest1 that one might have  seen 
an ,alexandrian cockney's views of      
,achilles and ,ulysses6  ,moreover1  in 
a hapless moment1 at least for us       
moderns1 he invented ,greek accents2    
thereby1 ,i fear1 so complicating and   
confusing our notions of ,greek  rhythm1
 that we shall never1 to the end of     
time1 be able to guess what  any ,greek 
verse1 saving the old ,homeric          
,hexameter1 sounded like4  ,after a     
while1 too1 the pedants1 according to   
their wont1 began quarrelling about     
their accents and their recessions4     
,moreover1 there was a rival school  at 
,pergamus where the fame of ,crates all 
but equalled the ,egyptian fame  of     
,aristarchus4  ,insolent6  ,what right  
had an ,asiatic to know anything8  ,so  
,aristarchus flew furiously on ,crates1 
being a man of plain common  sense1 who 
felt a correct reading a far more       

important thing than any of  ,crates's  
illustrations1 sthetic1 historical1 or  
mythological2 a  preference not yet     
quite extinct1 in one1 at least1 of our 
,universities4  8,sir10 said a clever   
,cambridge ,tutor to a philosophically  
inclined  freshman1 8remember1 that our 
business is to translate ,plato         
correctly1  not to discover his         
meaning40  ,and1 paradoxical as it may  
seem1 he was  right4  ,let us first have
 accuracy1 the merest mechanical        
accuracy1 in  every branch of knowledge4
  ,let us know what the thing is which  
we are  looking at4  ,let us know the   
exact words an author uses4  ,let us get
 at  the exact value of each word by    
that severe induction of which ,buttmann
  and the great ,germans have set such  
noble examples2 and then1 and not  till 
then1 we may begin to talk about        
philosophy1 and sthetics1 and the  rest4
  ,very ,probably ,aristarchus was right
 in his dislike of ,crates's  preference
 of what he called criticism1 to        

grammar4  ,very probably he  connected  
it with the other object of his especial
 hatred1 that fashion  of interpreting  
,homer allegorically1 which was         
springing up in his time1  and which    
afterwards under the ,neoplatonists rose
 to a frantic height1  and helped to    
destroy in them1 not only their power of
 sound judgment1  and of asking each    
thing patiently what it was1 but also   
any real  reverence for1 or             
understanding of1 the very authors over 
whom they  declaimed and                
sentimentalised4    ,yes--the ,cambridge
 ,tutor was right4  ,before you can tell
 what a man means1  you must have       
patience to find out what he says4  ,so 
far from wishing our  grammatical and   
philological education to be less severe
 than it is1 ,i  think it is not severe 
enough4  ,in an age like this--an age of
 lectures1  and of popular literature1  
and of self-culture1 too often random   
and  capricious1 however earnest1 we    
cannot be too careful in asking         

ourselves1 in compelling others to ask  
themselves1 the meaning of every  word  
which they use1 of every word which they
 read2 in assuring them1  whether they  
will believe us or not1 that the moral1 
as well as the  intellectual culture1   
acquired by translating accurately one  
dialogue of  ,plato1 by making out      
thoroughly the sense of one chapter of a
 standard  author1 is greater than they 
will get from skimming whole folios of  
,schlegelian sthetics1 resumes1         
histories of philosophy1 and the like   
second-hand information1 or attending   
seven lectures a-week till their  lives'
 end4   ,it is better to know one thing1
 than to know about ten  thousand       
things4  ,i cannot help feeling         
painfully1 after reading those  most    
interesting ,memoirs of ,margaret       
,fuller ,ossoli1 that the especial      
danger of this time is intellectual     
sciolism1 vagueness1 sentimental        
eclecticism--and feeling1 too1 as       
,socrates of old believed1 that         

intellectual vagueness and shallowness1 
however glib1 and grand1 and  eloquent  
it may seem1 is inevitably the parent of
 a moral vagueness and  shallowness1    
which may leave our age as it left the  
later ,greeks1 without  an absolute     
standard of right or of truth1 till it  
tries to escape from  its own           
scepticism1 as the later ,neoplatonists 
did1 by plunging  desperately into any  
fetish-worshipping superstition which   
holds out to  its wearied and yet       
impatient intellect1 the bait of        
decisions already  made for it1 of      
objects of admiration already formed and
 systematised4    ,therefore let us     
honour the grammarian in his place2 and1
 among others1  these old grammarians of
 ,alexandria2 only being sure that as   
soon as any  man begins1 as they did1   
displaying himself peacock-fashion1     
boasting of  his science as the great   
pursuit of humanity1 and insulting his  
fellow-craftsmen1 he becomes1 ipso      
facto1 unable to discover any more      

truth for us1 having put on a habit of  
mind to which induction is  impossible2 
and is thenceforth to be passed by with 
a kindly but a  pitying smile4  ,and so1
 indeed1 it happened with these         
quarrelsome  ,alexandrian grammarians1  
as it did with the ,casaubons and       
,scaligers and  ,daciers of the last two
 centuries4  ,as soon as they began     
quarrelling  they lost the power of     
discovering4  ,the want of the inductive
 faculty in  their attempts at philology
 is utterly ludicrous4  ,most of their  
derivations of words are about on a par 
with ,jacob ,bhmen's etymology of       
sulphur1 wherein he makes sul1 if ,i    
recollect right1 signify some  active   
principle of combustion1 and phur the   
passive one4  ,it was left  for more    
patient and less noisy men1 like ,grimm1
 ,bopp1 and ,buttmann1 to  found a      
science of philology1 to discover for us
 those great laws which  connect modern 
philology with history1 ethnology1      
physiology1 and with  the very deepest  

questions of theology itself4  ,and in  
the meanwhile1  these ,alexandrians'    
worthless criticism has been utterly    
swept away2  while their real work1     
their accurate editions of the classics1
 remain to  us as a precious heritage4  
,so it is throughout history3 nothing   
dies  which is worthy to live4  ,the    
wheat is surely gathered into the       
garner1  the chaff is burnt up by that  
eternal fire which1 happily for this    
universe1 cannot be quenched by any art 
of man1 but goes on forever1  devouring 
without indulgence all the folly and the
 falsehood of the  world4    ,as yet you
 have heard nothing of the metaphysical 
schools of ,alexandria2  for as yet none
 have existed1 in the modern acceptation
 of that word4  ,indeed1 ,i am not sure 
that ,i must not tell you frankly1 that 
none ever  existed at all in            
,alexandria1 in that same modern        
acceptation4  ,ritter1 ,i  think1 it is 
who complains navely enough1 that the   
,alexandrian  ,neoplatonists had a bad  

habit1 which grew on them more and more 
as the  years rolled on1 of mixing up   
philosophy with theology1 and so        
defiling1  or at all events colouring1  
its pure transparency4  ,there is no    
denying  the imputation1 as ,i shall    
show at greater length in my next       
,lecture4  ,but one would have thought1 
looking back through history1 that the  
,alexandrians were not the only         
philosophers guilty of this shameful act
  of syncretism4  ,plato1 one would have
 thought1 was as great a sinner as      
they4  ,so were the ,hindoos4  ,in spite
 of all their logical and  metaphysical 
acuteness1 they were1 you will find1    
unable to get rid of  the notion that   
theological inquiries concerning        
,brahma1 ,atma1 ,creeshna1  were        
indissolubly mixed up with that same    
logic and metaphysic4  ,the  ,parsees   
could not separate questions about      
,ahriman and ,ormuzd from ,kant's  three
 great philosophic problems3 ,what is   
,man8--,what may be known8--,what       

should be done8  ,neither1 indeed1 could
 the earlier ,greek sages4  ,not one  of
 them1 of any school whatsoever--from   
the semi-mythic ,seven ,sages to  ,plato
 and ,aristotle--but finds it necessary 
to consider not in passing1  but as the 
great object of research1 questions     
concerning the  gods3--whether they are 
real or not2 one or many2 personal or   
impersonal2  cosmic1 and parts of the   
universe1 or organisers and rulers of   
it2 in  relation to man1 or without     
relation to him4  ,even in those who    
flatly  deny the existence of the gods1 
even in ,lucretius himself1 these       
questions have to be considered1 before 
the question1 ,what is man8 can  get any
 solution at all4  ,on the answer given 
to them is found to depend  intimately  
the answer to the question1 ,what is the
 immaterial part of  man8  ,is it a part
 of nature1 or of something above       
nature8  ,has he an  immaterial part at 
all8--in one word1 ,is a human          
metaphysic possible at  all8  ,so it was

 with the ,greek philosophers of old1   
even1 as ,asclepius  and ,ammonius say1 
with ,aristotle himself4  8,the object  
of ,aristotle's  metaphysic10 one of    
them says1 8is theological4  ,herein    
,aristotle  theologises40  ,and there is
 no denying the assertion4  ,we must not
 then  be hard on the ,neoplatonists1 as
 if they were the first to mix things   
separate from the foundation of the     
world4  ,i do not say that theology  and
 metaphysic are separate studies4  ,that
 is to be ascertained only by  seeing   
some one separate them4  ,and when ,i   
see them separated1 ,i shall  believe   
them separable4  ,only the separation   
must not be produced by the  simple     
expedient of denying the existence of   
either one of them1 or at  least of     
ignoring the existence of one steadily  
during the study of the  other4  ,if    
they can be parted without injury to    
each other1 let them be  parted2 and    
till then let us suspend hard judgments 
on the ,alexandrian  school of          

metaphysic1 and also on the schools of  
that curious people the  ,jews1 who had 
at this period a steadily increasing    
influence on the  thought1 as well as on
 the commercial prosperity1 of          
,alexandria4    ,you must not suppose1  
in the meanwhile1 that the philosophers 
whom the  ,ptolemies collected 7as they 
would have any other marketable article7
 by  liberal offers of pay and          
patronage1 were such men as the old     
,seven ,sages  of ,greece1 or as        
,socrates1 ,plato1 and ,aristotle4  ,in 
these three last  indeed1 ,greek thought
 reached not merely its greatest height1
 but the  edge of a precipice1 down     
which it rolled headlong after their    
decease4  ,the intellectual defects of  
the ,greek mind1 of which ,i have       
already  spoken1 were doubtless one     
great cause of this decay3 but1 to my   
mind1  moral causes had still more to do
 with it4  ,the more cultivated ,greek  
states1 to judge from the writings of   
,plato1 had not been an  over-righteous 

people during the generation in which he
 lived4  ,and in  the generations which 
followed1 they became an altogether     
wicked people2  immoral1 unbelieving1   
hating good1 and delighting in all which
 was evil4  ,and it was in consequence  
of these very sins of theirs1 as ,i     
think1 that  the old ,hellenic race     
began to die out physically1 and        
population  throughout ,greece to       
decrease with frightful rapidity1 after 
the time of  the ,achan league4  ,the   
facts are well known2 and foul enough   
they are4  ,when the ,romans destroyed  
,greece1 ,god was just and merciful4    
,the eagles  were gathered together only
 because the carrion needed to be       
removed from  the face of ,god's earth4 
,and at the time of which ,i now speak1 
the signs  of approaching death were    
fearfully apparent4  ,hapless and       
hopeless  enough were the clique of men 
out of whom the first two ,ptolemies    
hoped  to form a school of philosophy2  
men certainly clever enough1 and amusing

  withal1 who might give the kings of   
,egypt many a shrewd lesson in          
king-craft1 and the ways of this world1 
and the art of profiting by the  folly  
of fools1 and the selfishness of the    
selfish2 or who might amuse  them1 in   
default of fighting-cocks1 by puns and  
repartees1 and battles of  logic2 8how  
one thing cannot be predicated of       
another10 or 8how the wise  man is not  
only to overcome every misfortune1 but  
not even to feel it10  and other such   
mighty questions1 which in those days   
hid that deep  unbelief in any truth    
whatsoever which was spreading fast over
 the minds  of men4  ,such              
word-splitters were ,stilpo and         
,diodorus1 the slayer and the  slain4   
,they were of the ,megaran school1 and  
were named ,dialectics2 and  also1 with 
more truth1 ,eristics1 or quarrellers4  
,their clique had  professed to follow  
,zeno and ,socrates in declaring the    
instability of  sensible presumptions   
and conclusions1 in preaching an        

absolute and  eternal ,being4  ,but     
there was this deep gulf between them   
and ,socrates2  that while ,socrates    
professed to be seeking for the         
,absolute and ,eternal1  for that which 
is1 they were content with affirming    
that it exists4  ,with  him1 as with the
 older sages1 philosophy was a search   
for truth4  ,with  them it was a scheme 
of doctrines to be defended4  ,and the  
dialectic on  which they prided         
themselves so much1 differed from his   
accordingly4  ,he  used it inductively1 
to seek out1 under the notions and      
conceptions of  the mind1 certain       
absolute truths and laws of which they  
were only the  embodiment4  ,words and  
thought were to him a field for careful 
and  reverent induction1 as the         
phenomena of nature are to us the       
disciples of  ,bacon4  ,but with these  
hapless ,megarans1 who thought that they
 had found  that for which ,socrates    
professed only to seek dimly and afar   
off1 and  had got it safe in a dogma1   

preserved as it were in spirits1 and put
 by  in a museum1 the great use of      
dialectic was to confute opponents4     
,delight in their own subtlety grew on  
them1 the worship not of objective      
truth1 but of the forms of the intellect
 whereby it may be demonstrated2  till  
they became the veriest word-splitters1 
rivals of the old sophists  whom their  
master had attacked1 and justified too  
often ,aristophanes'  calumny1 which    
confounded ,socrates with his opponents1
 as a man whose aim  was to make the    
worse appear the better reason4    ,we  
have here1 in both parties1 all the     
marks of an age of exhaustion1 of       
scepticism1 of despair about finding any
 real truth4  ,no wonder that they  were
 superseded by the ,pyrrhonists1 who    
doubted all things1 and by the          
,academy1 which prided itself on setting
 up each thing to knock it down  again2 
and so by prudent and well-bred and     
tolerant qualifying of every  assertion1
 neither affirming too much1 nor denying

 too much1 keep their  minds in a       
wholesome--or unwholesome--state of     
equilibrium1 as stagnant  pools are     
kept1 that everything may have free     
toleration to rot  undisturbed4         
,these hapless caricaturists of the     
dialectic of ,plato1 and the logic of   
,aristotle1 careless of any vital       
principles or real results1 ready enough
  to use fallacies each for their own   
party1 and openly proud of their        
success in doing so1 were assisted by   
worthy compeers of an outwardly         
opposite tone of thought1 the           
,cyrenaics1 ,theodorus and ,hegesias4   
,with  their clique1 as with their      
master ,aristippus1 the senses were the 
only  avenues to knowledge2 man was the 
measure of all things2 and 8happiness   
our being's end and aim40  ,theodorus   
was surnamed the ,atheist2 and1 it      
seems1 not without good reason2 for he  
taught that there was no absolute  or   
eternal difference between good and     
evil2 nothing really disgraceful  in    

crimes2 no divine ground for laws1 which
 according to him had been  invented by 
men to prevent fools from making        
themselves disagreeable2 on  which      
theory1 laws must be confessed to have  
been in all ages somewhat of  a failure4
  ,he seems to have been1 like his      
master1 an impudent  light-hearted      
fellow1 who took life easily enough1    
laughed at patriotism1  and all other   
high-flown notions1 boasted that the    
world was his country1  and was no doubt
 excellent after-dinner company for the 
great king4  ,hegesias1 his fellow      
,cyrenaic1 was a man of a darker and    
more melancholic  temperament2 and while
 ,theodorus contented himself with      
preaching a  comfortable selfishness1   
and obtaining pleasure1 made it rather  
his study  to avoid pain4  ,doubtless   
both their theories were popular enough 
at  ,alexandria1 as they were in ,france
 during the analogous period1 the       
,sicle ,louis ,quinze4  ,the 8,contrat  
,social10 and the rest of their         

doctrines1 moral and metaphysical1 will 
always have their admirers on  earth1 as
 long as that variety of the human      
species exists for whose  especial      
behoof ,theodorus held that laws were   
made2 and the whole form of  thought met
 with great approbation in after years  
at ,rome1 where ,epicurus  carried it to
 its highest perfection4  ,after that1  
under the pressure of  a train of rather
 severe lessons1 which ,gibbon has      
detailed in his  8,decline and ,fall of 
the ,roman ,empire10 little or nothing  
was heard of  it1 save sotto voce1      
perhaps1 at the ,papal courts of the    
sixteenth  century4  ,to revive it      
publicly1 or at least as much of it as  
could be  borne by a world now for      
seventeen centuries ,christian1 was the 
glory of  the eighteenth century4  ,the 
moral scheme of ,theodorus has now      
nearly  vanished among us1 at least as a
 confessed creed2 and1 in spite of the  
authority of ,mr4 ,locke's great and    
good name1 his metaphysical scheme is   

showing signs of a like approaching     
disappearance4  ,let us hope that it    
may be a speedy one2 for if the senses  
be the only avenues to knowledge2  if   
man be the measure of all things2 and if
 law have not1 as ,hooker says1  her    
fount and home in the very bosom of ,god
 himself1 then was ,homer's  ,zeus right
 in declaring man to be 8the most       
wretched of all the beasts of  the      
field40    ,and yet one cannot help     
looking with a sort of awe 7,i dare not 
call it  respect7 at that melancholic   
faithless ,hegesias4  ,doubtless he1    
like his  compeers1 and indeed all      
,alexandria for three hundred years1    
cultivated  philosophy with no more real
 purpose than it was cultivated by the  
graceless beaux-esprits of ,louis       
,,xv4's court1 and with as little       
practical effect on morality2 but of    
this ,hegesias alone it stands  written1
 that his teaching actually made men do 
something2 and moreover1  do the most   
solemn and important thing which any man

 can do1 excepting  always doing right4 
,i must confess1 however1 that the      
result of his  teaching took so         
unexpected a form1 that the reigning    
,ptolemy1 apparently  ,philadelphus1 had
 to interfere with the sacred right of  
every man to talk  as much nonsense as  
he likes1 and forbade ,hegesias to teach
 at  ,alexandria4  ,for ,hegesias1 a    
,cyrenaic like ,theodorus1 but a rather 
more  morose pedant than that saucy and 
happy scoffer1 having discovered that   
the great end of man was to avoid pain1 
also discovered 7his digestion  being   
probably in a disordered state7 that    
there was so much more pain  than       
pleasure in the world1 as to make it a  
thoroughly disagreeable  place1 of which
 man was well rid at any price4         
,whereon he wrote a book  called1 1 in  
which a man who had determined to starve
 himself1  preached the miseries of     
human life1 and the blessings of death1 
with  such overpowering force1 that the 
book actually drove many persons to     

commit suicide1 and escape from a world 
which was not fit to dwell in4  ,a      
fearful proof of how rotten the state of
 society was becoming1 how  desperate   
the minds of men1 during those frightful
 centuries which  immediately preceded  
the ,christian era1 and how fast was    
approaching that  dark chaos of unbelief
 and unrighteousness1 which ,paul of    
,tarsus so  analyses and describes in   
the first chapter of his ,epistle to the
  ,romans--when the old light was lost1 
the old faiths extinct1 the old         
reverence for the laws of family and    
national life1 destroyed1 yea even  the 
natural instincts themselves perverted2 
that chaos whose darkness  ,juvenal1 and
 ,petronius1 and ,tacitus have proved1  
in their fearful pages1  not to have    
been exaggerated by the more            
compassionate though more  righteous    
,jew4    ,and now observe1 that this    
selfishness--this wholesome state of    
equilibrium--this philosophic calm1     
which is really only a lazy pride1  was1

 as far as we can tell1 the main object 
of all the schools from the  time of    
,alexander to the ,christian era4  ,we  
know very little of those  ,sceptics1   
,cynics1 ,epicureans1 ,academics1       
,peripatetics1 ,stoics1 of whom  there  
has been so much talk1 except at        
second-hand1 through the ,romans1  from 
whom ,stoicism in after ages received a 
new and not ignoble life4  ,but this we 
do know of the later sets1 that they    
gradually gave up the  search for truth1
 and propounded to themselves as the    
great type for a  philosopher1 ,how     
shall a man save his own soul from this 
evil world8 ,they  may have been right2 
it may have been the best thing to think
 about in  those exhausted and decaying 
times3 but it was a question of ethics1 
not  of philosophy1 in the sense which  
the old ,greek sages put on that latter 
word4  ,their object was1 not to get at 
the laws of all things1 but to  fortify 
themselves against all things1 each     
according to his scheme1 and  so to be  

self-sufficient and alone4  ,even in the
 ,stoics1 who boldly and  righteously   
asserted an immutable morality1 this was
 the leading  conception4  ,as has been 
well said of them3    8,if we reflect   
how deeply the feeling of an intercourse
 between men and a  divine race superior
 to themselves had worked itself into   
the ,greek  character--what a number of 
fables1 some beautiful1 some impure1 it 
had  impregnated and procured credence  
for--how it sustained every form of     
polity and every system of laws1 we may 
imagine what the effects must  have been
 of its disappearance4  ,if it is       
possible for any man1 it was  not1      
certainly1 possible for a ,greek1 to    
feel himself connected by any  real     
bonds with his fellow-creatures around  
him1 while he felt himself  utterly     
separated from any being above his      
fellow-creatures4  ,but the  sense of   
that isolation would affect different   
minds very differently4  ,it drove the  
,epicurean to consider how he might make

 a world in which he  should live       
comfortably1 without distracting visions
 of the past and  future1 and the dread 
of those upper powers who no longer     
awakened in him  any feelings of        
sympathy4  ,it drove ,zeno the ,stoic to
 consider whether a  man may not find   
enough in himself to satisfy him1 though
 what is beyond  him be ever so         
unfriendly4 4 4 4 ,we may trace in the  
productions which  are attributed to    
,zone a very clear indication of the    
feeling which was  at work in his mind4 
,he undertook1 for instance1 among other
 tasks1 to  answer ,plato's             
#8,republic4'  ,the truth that a man is 
a political being1  which informs and   
pervades that book1 was one which must  
have been  particularly harassing to his
 mind1 and which he felt must be got rid
 of1  before he could hope to assert his
 doctrine of a man's solitary dignity40 
,woe to the nation or the society in    
which this individualising and          
separating process is going on in the   

human mind6  ,whether it take the  form 
of a religion or of a philosophy1 it is 
at once the sign and the  cause of      
senility1 decay1 and death4  ,if man    
begins to forget that he is  a social   
being1 a member of a body1 and that the 
only truths which can  avail him        
anything1 the only truths which are     
worthy objects of his  philosophical    
search1 are those which are equally true
 for every man1  which will equally     
avail every man1 which he must proclaim1
 as far as he  can1 to every man1 from  
the proudest sage to the meanest        
outcast1 he  enters1 ,i believe1 into a 
lie1 and helps forward the dissolution  
of that  society of which he is a       
member4  ,i care little whether what he 
holds be  true or not4  ,if it be true1 
he has made it a lie by appropriating it
  proudly and selfishly to himself1 and 
by excluding others from it4  ,he  has  
darkened his own power of vision by that
 act of self-appropriation1  so that    
even if he sees a truth1 he can only see

 it refractedly1  discoloured by the    
medium of his own private likes and     
dislikes1 and  fulfils that great and   
truly philosophic law1 that he who      
loveth not his  brother is in darkness1 
and knoweth not whither he goeth4  ,and 
so it  befell those old ,greek schools4 
,it is out of our path to follow them to
  ,italy1 where sturdy old ,roman       
patriots cursed them1 and with good     
reason1  as corrupting the morals of the
 young4  ,our business is with          
,alexandria2  and there1 certainly1 they
 did nothing for the elevation of       
humanity4  ,what culture they may have  
given1 probably helped to make the      
,alexandrians1 what ,csar calls them1   
the most ingenious of all nations3  but 
righteous or valiant men it did not make
 them4  ,when1 after the three  great   
reigns of ,soter1 ,philadelphus1 and    
,euergetes1 the race of the  ,ptolemies 
began to wear itself out1 ,alexandria   
fell morally1 as its  sovereigns fell2  
and during a miserable and shameful     

decline of a hundred  and eighty years1 
sophists wrangled1 pedants fought over  
accents and  readings with the true     
odium gammaticum1 and kings plunged     
deeper and  deeper into the abysses of  
luxury and incest1 laziness and cruelty1
 till  the flood came1 and swept them   
all away4  ,cleopatra1 the ,helen of    
,egypt1  betrayed her country to the    
,roman2 and thenceforth the             
,alexandrians  became slaves in all but 
name4    ,and now that ,alexandria has  
become a tributary province1 is it to   
share  the usual lot of enslaved        
countries and lose all originality and  
vigour  of thought8  ,not so4  ,from    
this point1 strangely enough1 it begins 
to  have a philosophy of its own4       
,hitherto it has been importing ,greek  
thought into ,egypt and ,syria1 even to 
the furthest boundaries of ,persia2  and
 the whole ,east has become ,greek3 but 
it has received little in  return4  ,the
 ,indian ,gymnosophists1 or ,brahmins1  
had little or no effect  on ,greek      

philosophy1 except in the case of       
,pyrrho3 the ,persian ,dualism  still   
less4  ,the ,egyptian symbolic          
nature-worship had been too gross to  be
 regarded by the cultivated ,alexandrian
 as anything but a barbaric             
superstition4  ,one eastern nation had  
intermingled closely with the           
,macedonian race1 and from it           
,alexandrian thought received a new     
impulse4    ,i mentioned in my first    
lecture the conciliatory policy which   
the  ,ptolemies had pursued toward the  
,jews4  ,soter had not only allowed but 
encouraged them to settle in ,alexandria
 and ,egypt1 granting them the same     
political privileges with the           
,macedonians and other ,greeks4  ,soon  
they  built themselves a temple there1  
in obedience to some supposed prophecy  
in their sacred writings1 which seems   
most probably to have been a wilful     
interpolation4  ,whatsoever value we may
 attach to the various myths  concerning
 the translation of their ,scriptures   

into ,greek1 there can be  no doubt that
 they were translated in the reign of   
,soter1 and that the  exceedingly       
valuable ,septuagint version is the work
 of that period4  ,moreover1 their      
numbers in ,alexandria were very great4 
,when ,amrou took  ,constantinople in   
,a4,d4 #fdj1 there were #dj1jjj ,jews in
 it2 and their  numbers during the      
,ptolemaic and ,roman periods1 before   
their temporary  expulsion by ,cyril    
about #dab1 were probably greater2 and  
,egypt altogether  is said to have      
contained #bjj1jjj ,jews4  ,they had    
schools there1 which  were so esteemed  
by their whole nation throughout the    
,east1 that the  ,alexandrian ,rabbis1  
the ,light of ,israel1 as they were     
called1 may be  fairly considered as the
 centre of ,jewish thought and learning 
for  several centuries4    ,we are      
accustomed1 and not without reason1 to  
think with some contempt of  these old  
,rabbis4  ,rabbinism1 ,cabbalism1 are   
become by-words in the  mouths of men4  

,it may be instructive for us--it is    
certainly necessary  for us1 if we wish 
to understand ,alexandria--to examine a 
little how they  became so fallen4      
,their philosophy took its stand1 as you
 all know1 on certain ancient  books of 
their people2 histories1 laws1 poems1   
philosophical treatises1  which all have
 one element peculiar to themselves1    
namely1 the assertion  of a living      
personal ,ruler and ,teacher1 not merely
 of the ,jewish race1  but of all the   
nations of the earth4  ,after the return
 of their race from  ,babylon1 their own
 records give abundant evidence that    
this strange  people became the most    
exclusive and sectarian which the world 
ever saw4  ,into the causes of that     
exclusiveness ,i will not now enter2    
suffice it to  say1 that it was         
pardonable enough in a people asserting 
,monotheism in  the midst of idolatrous 
nations1 and who knew1 from experience  
even more  bitter than that which taught
 ,plato and ,socrates1 how directly all 

those  popular idolatries led to every  
form of baseness and immorality4  ,but  
we  may trace in them1 from the date of 
their return from ,babylon1 especially  
from their settlement in ,alexandria1 a 
singular change of opinion4  ,in        
proportion as they began to deny that   
their unseen personal ,ruler had        
anything to do with the ,gentiles--the  
nations of the earth1 as they called    
them--in proportion as they considered  
themselves as ,his only subjects--or    
rather1 ,him and ,his guidance as their 
own private property--exactly in  that  
proportion they began to lose all living
 or practical belief that ,he  did guide
 them4  ,he became a being of the past2 
one who had taught and  governed their  
forefathers in old times3 not one who   
was teaching and  governing them now4   
,i beg you to pay attention to this     
curious result2  because you will see1  
,i think1 the very same thing occurring 
in two other  ,alexandrian schools1 of  
which ,i shall speak hereafter4    ,the 

result to these ,rabbis was1 that the   
inspired books which spoke of  this     
,divine guidance and government became  
objects of superstitious  reverence1    
just in proportion as they lost all     
understanding of their  real value and  
meaning4  ,nevertheless1 this too       
produced good results2  for the greatest
 possible care was taken to fix the     
,canon of these books2  to settle1 as   
far as possible1 the exact time at which
 the ,divine  guidance was supposed to  
have ceased2 after which it was impious 
to claim  a ,divine teaching2 when their
 sages were left to themselves1 as they 
fancied1 with a complete body of        
knowledge1 on which they were henceforth
  only to comment4  ,thus1 whether or   
not they were right in supposing that   
the ,divine ,teacher had ceased to teach
 and inspire them1 they did  infinite   
service by marking out for us certain   
writers whom ,he had  certainly taught  
and inspired4  ,no doubt they were right
 in their sense  of the awful change    

which had passed over their nation4     
,there was an  infinite difference      
between them and the old ,hebrew        
writers4  ,they had  lost something     
which those old prophets possessed4  ,i 
invite you to  ponder1 each for himself1
 on the causes of this strange loss2    
bearing in  mind that they lost their   
forefathers' heirloom1 exactly in       
proportion as  they began to believe it 
to be their exclusive possession1 and to
 deny  other human beings any right to  
or share in it4  ,it may have been that 
the light given to their forefathers    
had1 as they thought1 really  departed4 
,it may have been1 also1 that the light 
was there all around  them still1 as    
bright as ever1 but that they would not 
open their eyes  and behold it2 or      
rather1 could not open them1 because    
selfishness and  pride had sealed them4 
,it may have been1 that inspiration was 
still very  near them too1 if their     
spirits had been willing to receive it4 
,but of  the fact of the change there   

was no doubt4  ,for the old ,hebrew     
seers were  men dealing with the        
loftiest and deepest laws3 the ,rabbis  
were shallow  pedants4  ,the old ,hebrew
 seers were righteous and virtuous men3 
the  ,rabbis became1 in due time1 some  
of the worst and wickedest men who ever 
trod this earth4    ,thus they too had  
their share in that downward career of  
pedantry which  we have seen            
characterise the whole past ,alexandrine
 age4  ,they1 like  ,zenodotus and      
,aristarchus1 were commentators1        
grammarians1 sectarian  disputers3 they 
were not thinkers or actors4  ,their    
inspired books were  to them no more the
 words of living human beings who had   
sought for the  ,absolute ,wisdom1 and  
found it after many sins and doubts and 
sorrows4  ,the human writers became in  
their eyes the puppets and mouthpieces  
of  some magical influence1 not the     
disciples of a living and loving person4
  ,the book itself was1 in their belief1
 not in any true sense inspired1 but    

magically dictated--by what power they  
cared not to define4  ,his character    
was unimportant to them1 provided ,he   
had inspired no nation but their  own4  
,but1 thought they1 if the words were   
dictated1 each of them must  have some  
mysterious value4  ,and if each word had
 a mysterious value1 why  not each      
letter8  ,and how could they set limits 
to that mysterious value8  ,might not   
these words1 even rearrangements of the 
letters of them1 be  useful in          
protecting them against the sorceries of
 the heathen1 in  driving away those    
evil spirits1 or evoking those good     
spirits1 who1  though seldom mentioned  
in their early records1 had after their 
return  from ,babylon begun to form an  
important part of their unseen world8   
,for  as they had lost faith in the ,one
 ,preserver of their race1 they had     
filled up the void by a ponderous       
demonology of innumerable preservers4   
,this process of thought was not        
confined to ,alexandria4  ,dr4 ,layard1 

in  his last book on ,nineveh1 gives    
some curious instances of its prevalence
  among them at an earlier period1 well 
worth your careful study4  ,but it  was 
at ,alexandria that the ,jewish         
,cabbalism formed itself into a system4 
,it was there that the ,jews learnt to  
become the jugglers and  magic-mongers  
of the whole ,roman world1 till         
,claudius had to expel them  from ,rome1
 as pests to rational and moral society4
    ,and yet1 among these hapless       
pedants there lingered nobler thoughts  
and  hopes4  ,they could not read the   
glorious heirlooms of their race without
  finding in them records of antique    
greatness and virtue1 of old            
deliverances worked for their           
forefathers2 and what seemed promises1  
too1  that that greatness should return4
  ,the notion that those promises were  
conditional2 that they expressed eternal
 moral laws1 and declared the           
consequences of obeying those laws1 they
 had lost long ago4  ,by looking  on    

themselves as exclusively and           
arbitrarily favoured by ,heaven1 they   
were ruining their own moral sense4     
,things were not right or wrong to  them
 because ,right was eternal and divine1 
and ,wrong the transgression of  that   
eternal right4  ,how could that be8     
,for then the right things the          
,gentiles seemed to do would be right   
and divine2--and that supposition in    
their eyes was all but impious4  ,none  
could do right but themselves1 for  they
 only knew the law of ,god4  ,so1 right 
with them had no absolute or  universal 
ground1 but was reduced in their minds  
to the performance of  certain acts     
commanded exclusively to them--a form of
 ethics which rapidly  sank into the    
most petty and frivolous casuistry as to
 the outward  performance of those acts4
  ,the sequel of those ethics is known  
to all  the world1 in the spectacle of  
the most unrivalled religiosity1 and    
scrupulous respectability1 combined with
 a more utter absence of moral  sense1  

in their most cultivated and learned    
men1 than the world has ever  beheld    
before or since4    ,in such a state of 
mind it was impossible for them to look 
on their old  prophets as true seers1   
beholding and applying eternal moral    
laws1 and1  therefore1 seeing the future
 in the present and in the past4  ,they 
must  be the mere utterers of an        
irreversible arbitrary fate2 and that   
fate  must1 of course1 be favourable to 
their nation4  ,so now arose a school   
who picked out from their old prophets  
every passage which could be made  to   
predict their future glory1 and a       
science which settled when that  glory  
was to return4  ,by the arbitrary rules 
of criticism a prophetic day  was       
defined to mean a year2 a week1 seven   
years4  ,the most simple and  human     
utterances were found to have recondite 
meanings relative to their  future      
triumph over the heathens whom they     
cursed and hated4  ,if any of  you ever 
come across the popular ,jewish         

interpretations of ,the ,song of        
,solomon1 you will there see the folly  
in which acute and learned men can      
indulge themselves when they have lost  
hold of the belief in anything  really  
absolute and eternal and moral1 and have
 made ,fate1 and ,time1 and  ,self1     
their real deities4  ,but this dream of 
a future restoration was in  no wise    
ennobled1 as far as we can see1 with any
 desire for a moral  restoration4  ,they
 believed that a person would appear    
some day or other  to deliver them4     
,even they were happily preserved by    
their sacred books  from the notion that
 deliverance was to be found for them1  
or for any  man1 in an abstraction or   
notion ending in -ation or -ality4  ,in 
justice  to them it must be said1 that  
they were too wise to believe that      
personal  qualities1 such as power1     
will1 love1 righteousness1 could reside 
in any  but in a person1 or be          
manifested except by a person4  ,and    
among the  earlier of them the belief   

may have been1 that the ancient unseen  
,teacher  of their race would be their  
deliverer3 but as they lost the thought 
of  ,him1 the expected ,deliverer became
 a mere human being3 or rather not a    
human being2 for as they lost their     
moral sense1 they lost in the very      
deepest meaning their humanity1 and     
forgot what man was like till they      
learned to look only for a conqueror2 a 
manifestation of power1 and not  of     
goodness2 a destroyer of the hated      
heathen1 who was to establish them  as  
the tyrant race of the whole earth4  ,on
 that fearful day on which1 for  a      
moment1 they cast away even that last   
dream1 and cried1 8,we have no  king but
 ,csar10 they spoke the secret of their 
hearts4  ,it was a ,csar1  a ,jewish    
,csar1 for whom they had been longing   
for centuries4  ,and if  they could not 
have such a deliverer1 they would have  
none3 they would  take up with the best 
embodiment of brute ,titanic power which
 they could  find1 and crucify the      

embodiment of ,righteousness and ,love4 
,amid all the  metaphysical schools of  
,alexandria1 ,i know none so deeply     
instructive as  that school of the      
,rabbis1 8the glory of ,israel40    ,but
 you will say3 8,this does not look like
 a school likely to regenerate          
,alexandrian thought40  ,true3 and yet  
it did regenerate it1 both for good  and
 for evil2 for these men had among them 
and preserved faithfully  enough for all
 practical purposes1 the old literature 
of their race2 a  literature which ,i   
firmly believe1 if ,i am to trust the   
experience of  #aijj years1 is destined 
to explain all other literatures2       
because it has  firm hold of the one    
eternal root-idea which gives life1     
meaning1 ,divine  sanction1 to every    
germ or fragment of human truth which is
 in any of  them4  ,it did so1 at least1
 in ,alexandria for the ,greek          
literature4  ,about the ,christian era1 
a cultivated ,alexandrian ,jew1 a       
disciple of  ,plato and of ,aristotle1  

did seem to himself to find in the      
sacred books  of his nation that which  
agreed with the deepest discoveries of  
,greek  philosophy2 which explained and 
corroborated them4  ,and his            
announcement  of this fact1 weak and    
defective as it was1 had the most       
enormous and  unexpected results4  ,the 
father of ,new ,platonism was ,philo the
 ,jew4          ,,lecture ,,iii4        
,,neoplatonism4      ,,we now approach  
the period in which ,alexandria began to
 have a philosophy  of its own--to be1  
indeed1 the leader of human thought for 
several  centuries4    ,i shall enter on
 this branch of my subject with some    
fear and trembling2  not only on account
 of my own ignorance1 but on account of 
the great  difficulty of handling it    
without trenching on certain            
controversial  subjects which are       
rightly and wisely forbidden here4  ,for
 there was not  one school of           
,metaphysic at ,alexandria3 there were  
two2 which1 during the  whole period of 

their existence1 were in internecine    
struggle with each  other1 and yet      
mutually borrowing from each other2 the 
,heathen1 namely1  and the ,christian4  
,and you cannot contemplate1 still less 
can you  understand1 the one without the
 other4  ,some of late years have become
  all but unaware of the existence of   
that ,christian school2 and the word    
,philosophy1 on the authority of        
,gibbon1 who1 however excellent an      
authority for facts1 knew nothing about 
,philosophy1 and cared less1 has  been  
used exclusively to express heathen     
thought2 a misnomer which in            
,alexandria would have astonished       
,plotinus or ,hypatia as much as it     
would  ,clement or ,origen4  ,i do not  
say that there is1 or ought to be1 a    
,christian ,metaphysic4  ,i am speaking1
 as you know1 merely as a historian1    
dealing with facts2 and ,i say that     
there was one2 as profound1 as          
scientific1 as severe1 as that of the   
,pagan ,neoplatonists2 starting  indeed1

 as ,i shall show hereafter1 on many    
points from common ground with  theirs4 
,one can hardly doubt1 ,i should fancy1 
that many parts of ,st4  ,john's ,gospel
 and ,epistles1 whatever view we may    
take of them1 if they  are to be called 
anything1 are to be called metaphysic   
and philosophic4  ,and one can no more  
doubt that before writing them he had   
studied ,philo1  and was expanding      
,philo's thought in the direction which 
seemed fit to  him1 than we can doubt it
 of the earlier ,neoplatonists4  ,the   
technical  language is often identical2 
so are the primary ideas from which he  
starts1 howsoever widely the conclusions
 may differ4  ,if ,plotinus  considered 
himself an intellectual disciple of     
,plato1 so did ,origen and  ,clemens4   
,and ,i must1 as ,i said before1 speak  
of both1 or of neither4  ,my  only hope 
of escaping delicate ground lies in the 
curious fact1 that  rightly or wrongly1 
the form in which ,christianity         
presented itself to  the old            

,alexandrian thinkers was so utterly    
different from the popular  conception  
of it in modern ,england1 that one may  
very likely be able to  tell what little
 one knows about it1 almost without     
mentioning a single  doctrine which now 
influences the religious world4    ,but 
far greater is my fear1 that to a modern
 ,british auditory1 trained in  the     
school of ,locke1 much of ancient       
thought1 heathen as well as  ,christian1
 may seem so utterly the product of the 
imagination1 so utterly  without any    
corresponding reality in the universe1  
as to look like mere  unintelligible    
madness4  ,still1 ,i must try2 only     
entreating my hearers to  consider1 that
 how much soever we may honour ,locke   
and his great ,scotch  followers1 we are
 not bound to believe them either       
infallible1 or  altogether              
world-embracing2 that there have been   
other methods than  theirs of conceiving
 the ,unseen2 that the common ground    
from which both  ,christian and heathen 

,alexandrians start1 is not merely a    
private vagary  of their own1 but one   
which has been accepted undoubtingly1   
under so many  various forms1 by so many
 different races1 as to give something  
of an  inductive probability that it is 
not a mere dream1 but may be a right and
  true instinct of the human mind4  ,i  
mean the belief that the things which   
we see--nature and all her              
phenomena--are temporal1 and born only  
to die2  mere shadows of some unseen    
realities1 from whom their laws and life
 are  derived2 while the eternal things 
which subsist without growth1 decay1 or 
change1 the only real1 only truly       
existing things1 in short1 are certain  
things which are not seen2 inappreciable
 by sense1 or understanding1 or         
imagination1 perceived only by the      
conscience and the reason4  ,and that1  
again1 the problem of philosophy1 the   
highest good for man1 that for the  sake
 of which death were a gain1 without    
which life is worthless1 a  drudgery1 a 

degradation1 a failure1 and a ruin1 is  
to discover what those  unseen eternal  
things are1 to know them1 possess them1 
be in harmony with  them1 and thereby   
alone to rise to any real and solid     
power1 or safety1  or nobleness4  ,it is
 a strange dream4  ,but you will see    
that it is one  which does not bear much
 upon 8points of controversy10 any more 
than on  8,locke's philosophy20         
nevertheless1 when we find this same    
strange dream  arising1 apparently      
without intercommunion of thought1 among
 the old  ,hindoos1 among the ,greeks1  
among the ,jews2 and lastly1 when we see
 it  springing again in the ,middle     
,age1 in the mind of the almost         
forgotten  author of the 8,deutsche     
,theologie10 and so becoming the parent1
 not  merely of ,luther's deepest       
belief1 or of the ,german mystic schools
 of the  seventeenth and eighteenth     
centuries1 but of the great ,german     
,philosophy  itself as developed by     
,kant1 and ,fichte1 and ,schelling1 and 

,hegel1 we  must at least confess it to 
be a popular delusion1 if nothing       
better1  vast enough and common enough  
to be worth a little patient            
investigation1  wheresoever we may find 
it stirring the human mind4    ,but ,i  
have hope1 still1 that ,i may find      
sympathy and comprehension among  some1 
at least1 of my audience1 as ,i proceed 
to examine the ancient  realist schools 
of ,alexandria1 on account of their     
knowledge of the  modern realist schools
 of ,germany4  ,for ,i cannot but see1  
that a  revulsion is taking place in the
 thoughts of our nation upon metaphysic 
subjects1 and that ,scotland1 as usual1 
is taking the lead therein4  ,that  most
 illustrious ,scotchman1 ,mr4 ,thomas   
,carlyle1 first vindicated the  great   
,german ,realists from the vulgar       
misconceptions about them which  were so
 common at the beginning of this        
century1 and brought the minds of       
studious men to a more just appreciation
 of the philosophic severity1 the  moral

 grandeur1 of such thinkers as ,emmanuel
 ,kant1 and ,gottlieb ,fichte4  ,to     
another ,scotch gentleman1 who1 ,i      
believe1 has honoured me by his         
presence here to-night1 we owe most     
valuable translations of some of        
,fichte's works2 to be followed1 ,i     
trust1 by more4  ,and though1 as a      
humble disciple of ,bacon1 ,i cannot but
 think that the method both of ,kant    
and ,fichte possesses somewhat of the   
same inherent defect as the method  of  
the ,neoplatonist school1 yet ,i should 
be most unfair did ,i not express  my   
deep obligations to them1 and advise all
 those to study them  carefully1 who    
wish to gain a clear conception either  
of the old  ,alexandrian schools1 or of 
those intellectual movements which are  
agitating the modern mind1 and which    
will1 ,i doubt not1 issue in a  clearer 
light1 and in a nobler life1 if not for 
us1 yet still for our  children's       
children for ever4    ,the name of      
,philo the ,jew is now all but forgotten

 among us4  ,he was  laughed out of     
sight during the last century1 as a     
dreamer and an  allegorist1 who tried   
eclectically to patch together ,plato   
and ,moses4  ,the present age1 however1 
is rapidly beginning to suspect that all
 who  thought before the eighteenth     
century were not altogether either fools
 or  impostors2 old wisdom is obtaining 
a fairer hearing day by day1 and is     
found not to be so contradictory to new 
wisdom as was supposed4  ,we are        
beginning1 too1 to be more inclined to  
justify ,providence1 by believing  that 
lies are by their very nature impotent  
and doomed to die2 that  everything     
which has had any great or permanent    
influence on the human  mind1 must have 
in it some germ of eternal truth2 and   
setting ourselves  to separate that germ
 of truth from the mistakes which may   
have distorted  and overlaid it4  ,let  
us believe1 or at least hope1 the same  
for a few  minutes1 of ,philo1 and try  
to find out what was the secret of his  

power1  what the secret of his weakness4
    ,first3 ,i cannot think that he had 
to treat his own sacred books unfairly1 
to make them agree with the root-idea of
 ,socrates and ,plato4  ,socrates  and  
,plato acknowledged a ,divine teacher of
 the human spirit2 that was the  ground 
of their philosophy4  ,so did the       
literature of the ,jews4  ,socrates  and
 ,plato1 with all the ,greek sages till 
the ,sophistic era1 held that the       
object of philosophy was the search     
after that which truly exists3 that  he 
who found that1 found wisdom3 ,philo's  
books taught him the same truth3  but   
they taught him also1 that the search   
for wisdom was not merely the  search   
for that which is1 but for ,him who is2 
not for a thing1 but for a  person4  ,i 
do not mean that ,plato and the elder   
,greeks had not that  object also in    
view2 for ,i have said already that     
,theology was with them  the ultimate   
object of all metaphysic science3 but ,i
 do think that they  saw it infinitely  

less clearly than the old ,jewish sages4
  ,those sages  were utterly unable to  
conceive of an absolute truth1 except as
 residing  in an absolutely true person2
 of absolute wisdom1 except in an       
absolutely  wise person2 of an absolute 
order and law1 except in a lawgiver2 of 
an  absolute good1 except in an         
absolutely good person3 any more than   
either  they or we can conceive of an   
absolute love1 except in an absolutely  
loving person4  ,i say boldly1 that ,i  
think them right1 on all grounds of     
,baconian induction4  ,for all these    
qualities are only known to us as       
exhibited in persons2 and if we believe 
them to have any absolute and  eternal  
existence at all1 to be objective1 and  
independent of us1 and the  momentary   
moods and sentiments of our own mind1   
they must exist in some  absolute and   
eternal person1 or they are mere        
notions1 abstractions1  words1 which    
have no counterparts4    ,but here arose
 a puzzle in the mind of ,philo1 as it  

in reality had1 we  may see1 in the     
minds of ,socrates and ,plato4  ,how    
could he reconcile the  idea of that    
absolute and eternal one ,being1 that   
,zeus1 ,father of ,gods  and men1       
self-perfect1 self-contained1 without   
change or motion1 in whom1  as a ,jew1  
he believed even more firmly than the   
,platonists1 with the  ,dmon of         
,socrates1 the ,divine ,teacher whom    
both ,plato and ,solomon  confessed8    
,or how1 again1 could he reconcile the  
idea of ,him with the  creative and     
providential energy1 working in space   
and time1 working on  matter1 and       
apparently affected and limited1 if not 
baffled1 by the  imperfection of the    
minds which he taught1 by the           
imperfection of the  matter which he    
moulded8  ,this1 as all students of     
philosophy must know1  was one of the   
great puzzles of old ,greek philosophy1 
as long as it was  earnest and cared to 
have any puzzles at all3 it has been1   
since the days  of ,spinoza1 the great  

puzzle of all earnest modern            
philosophers4  ,philo  offered a        
solution in that idea of a ,logos1 or   
,word of ,god1 ,divinity  articulate1   
speaking and acting in time and space1  
and therefore by  successive acts2 and  
so doing1 in time and space1 the will of
 the  timeless and spaceless ,father1   
the ,abysmal and ,eternal ,being1 of    
whom he  was the perfect likeness4  ,in 
calling this person the ,logos1 and     
making  him the source of all human     
reason1 and knowledge of eternal laws1  
he  only translated from ,hebrew into   
,greek the name which he found in his   
sacred books1 8,the ,word of ,god40  ,as
 yet we have found no unfair            
allegorising of ,moses1 or twisting of  
,plato4  ,how then has he incurred  this
 accusation8    ,i cannot think1 again1 
that he was unfair in supposing that he 
might hold  at the same time the ,jewish
 belief concerning ,creation1 and the   
,platonic  doctrine of the real         
existence of ,archetypal ideas1 both of 

moral and of  physical phenomena4  ,i do
 not mean that such a conception was    
present  consciously to the mind of the 
old ,jews1 as it was most certainly to  
the  mind of ,st4 ,paul1 a practised    
,platonic dialectician2 but it seems to 
me1  as to ,philo1 to be a fair1 perhaps
 a necessary1 corollary from the        
,genetic ,philosophy1 both of ,moses and
 of ,solomon4    ,but in one thing he   
was unfair2 namely1 in his allegorising4
  ,but unfair  to whom8  ,to ,socrates  
and ,plato1 ,i believe1 as much as to   
,moses and to  ,samuel4  ,for what is   
the part of the old ,jewish books which 
he evaporates  away into mere mystic    
symbols of the private experiences of   
the devout  philosopher8  ,its practical
 everyday histories1 which deal with the
  common human facts of family and      
national life1 of man's outward and     
physical labour and craft4  ,these to   
him have no meaning1 except an          
allegoric one4  ,but has he thrown them 
away for the sake of getting a  step    

nearer to ,socrates1 or ,plato1 or      
,aristotle8  ,surely not4  ,to them1  as
 to the old ,jewish sages1 man is most  
important when regarded not  merely as a
 soul1 but as a man1 a social being of  
flesh and blood4  ,aristotle declares   
politics to be the architectonical      
science1 the family  and social         
relations to be the eternal master-facts
 of humanity4  ,plato1  in his          
,republic1 sets before himself the      
,constitution of a ,state1 as the       
crowning problem of his philosophy4     
,every work of his1 like every saying   
of his master ,socrates1 deals with the 
common1 outward1 vulgar facts of  human 
life1 and asserts that there is a divine
 meaning in them1 and that  reverent    
induction from them is the way to obtain
 the deepest truths4  ,socrates and     
,plato were as little inclined to       
separate the man and the  philosopher as
 ,moses1 ,solomon1 or ,isaiah were4     
,when ,philo1 by  allegorising away the 
simple human parts of his books1 is     

untrue to  ,moses's teaching1 he becomes
 untrue to ,plato's4  ,he becomes       
untrue1 ,i  believe1 to a higher        
teaching than ,plato's4  ,he loses sight
 of an eternal  truth1 which even old   
,homer might have taught him1 when he   
treats ,moses  as one section of his    
disciples in after years treated ,homer4
    ,for what is the secret of the      
eternal freshness1 the eternal beauty1  
ay1  ,i may say boldly1 in spite of all 
their absurdities and immoralities1 the 
eternal righteousness of those old      
,greek myths8  ,what is it which made   
,socrates and ,plato cling lovingly and 
reverently to them1 they scarce  knew   
why1 while they deplored the            
immoralities to which they had given    
rise8  ,what is it which made those     
myths1 alone of all old mythologies1    
the parents of truly beautiful          
sculpture1 painting1 poetry8 ,what is it
  which makes us love them still2 find1 
even at times against our  consciences1 
new meaning1 new beauty in them2 and    

brings home the story  of ,perseas or of
 ,hercules1 alike to the practised      
reason of ,niebuhr1 and  the untutored  
instincts of ,niebuhr's little child1   
for whom he threw them  into simplest   
forms8  ,why is it that in spite of our 
disagreeing with  their creed and their 
morality1 we still persist--and long may
 we persist1  or rather be compelled--as
 it were by blind instinct1 to train our
 boys  upon those old ,greek dreams2 and
 confess1 whenever we try to find a     
substitute for them in our educational  
schemes1 that we have as yet none8      
,because those old ,greek stories do    
represent the ,deities as the           
archetypes1 the kinsmen1 the teachers1  
the friends1 the inspirers of men4      
,because while the schoolboy reads how  
the ,gods were like to men1 only        
better1 wiser1 greater2 how the ,heroes 
are the children of the ,gods1 and  the 
slayers of the monsters which devour the
 earth2 how ,athene taught men  weaving1
 and ,phbus music1 and ,vulcan the      

cunning of the stithy2 how the  ,gods   
took pity on the noble-hearted son of   
,danae1 and lent him celestial  arms and
 guided him over desert and ocean to    
fulfil his vow--that boy is  learning   
deep lessons of metaphysic1 more in     
accordance with the reine  vernunft1 the
 pure reason whereby man perceives that 
which is moral1 and  spiritual1 and     
eternal1 than he would from all         
disquisitions about being  and becoming1
 about actualities and potentialities1  
which ever tormented  the weary brain of
 man4    ,let us not despise the gem    
because it has been broken to fragments1
  obscured by silt and mud4  ,still less
 let us fancy that one least  fragment  
of it is not more precious than the most
 brilliant paste jewel  of our own      
compounding1 though it be polished and  
faceted never so  completely4  ,for what
 are all these myths but fragments of   
that great  metaphysic idea1 which1 ,i  
boldly say1 ,i believe to be at once the
  justifier and the harmoniser of all   

philosophic truth which man has ever    
discovered1 or will discover2 which     
,philo saw partially1 and yet clearly2  
which the ,hebrew sages perceived far   
more deeply1 because more humanly  and  
practically2 which ,saint ,paul the     
,platonist1 and yet the ,apostle1       
raised to its highest power1 when he    
declared that the immutable and         
self-existent ,being1 for whom the      
,greek sages sought1 and did not        
altogether seek in vain1 has gathered   
together all things both in heaven  and 
in earth in one inspiring and creating  
,logos1 who is both ,god and  ,man8     
,be this as it may1 we find that from   
the time of ,philo1 the deepest  thought
 of the heathen world began to flow in a
 theologic channel4  ,all  the great    
heathen thinkers henceforth are         
theologians4  ,in the times of  ,nero1  
for instance1 ,epictetus the slave1 the 
regenerator of ,stoicism1 is  no mere   
speculator concerning entities and      
quiddities1 correct or  incorrect4  ,he 

is a slave searching for the secret of  
freedom1 and  finding that it consists  
in escaping not from a master1 but from 
self3  not to wealth and power1 but to  
,jove4  ,he discovers that ,jove is1 in 
some  most mysterious1 but most real    
sense1 the ,father of men2 he learns to 
look up to that ,father as his guide and
 friend4    ,numenius1 again1 in the    
second century1 was a man who had       
evidently  studied ,philo4  ,he         
perceived so deeply1 ,i may say so      
exaggeratedly1 the  analogy between the 
,jewish and the ,platonic assertions of 
an ,absolute and  ,eternal ,being1 side 
by side with the assertion of a ,divine 
,teacher of  man1 that he is said to    
have uttered the startling saying3      
8,what is ,plato  but ,moses talking    
,attic80  ,doubtless ,plato is not that3
 but the  expression is remarkable1 as  
showing the tendency of the age4  ,he   
too  looks up to ,god with prayers for  
the guidance of his reason4  ,he too    
enters into speculation concerning ,god 

in ,his absoluteness1 and in ,his       
connection with the universe4  8,the    
,primary ,god10 he says1 8must be free  
from works and a ,king2 but the         
,demiurgus must exercise government1    
going  through the heavens4  ,through   
,him comes this our condition2 through  
,him  ,reason being sent down in efflux1
 holds communion with all who are       
prepared for it3 ,god then looking down1
 and turning ,himself to each of  us1 it
 comes to pass that our bodies live and 
are nourished1 receiving  strength from 
the outer rays which come from ,him4    
,but when ,god turns us  to the         
contemplation of ,himself1 it comes to  
pass that these things are  worn out and
 consumed1 but that the reason lives1   
being partaker of a  blessed life40     
,this passage is exceedingly            
interesting1 as containing both the     
marrow of  old ,hebrew metaphysic1 and  
also certain notional elements1 of which
 we  find no trace in the ,scripture1   
and which may lead--as we shall find    

they  afterwards did lead--to confusing 
the moral with the notional1 and finally
  the notional with the material2 in    
plain words1 to ,pantheism4    ,you find
 this tendency1 in short1 in all the    
philosophers who flourished  between the
 age of ,augustus and the rise of       
,alexandrian ,neoplatonism4  ,gibbon1   
while he gives an approving pat on the  
back to his pet  8,philosophic          
,emperor10 ,marcus ,aurelius1 blinks the
 fact that ,marcus's  philosophy1 like  
that of ,plutarch1 contains as an       
integral element1 a  belief which to him
 would have been1 ,i fear1 simply       
ludicrous1 from its  strange analogy    
with the belief of ,john1 the ,christian
 ,apostle4  ,what is  ,marcus           
,aurelius's cardinal doctrine8  ,that   
there is a ,god within him1 a  ,word1 a 
,logos1 which 8has hold of him10 and who
 is his teacher and  guardian2 that over
 and above his body and his soul1 he has
 a ,reason  which is capable of 8hearing
 that ,divine ,word1 and obeying the    

monitions  of that ,god40  ,what is     
,plutarch's cardinal doctrine8  ,that   
the same ,word1  the ,dmon who spoke to 
the heart of ,socrates1 is speaking to  
him and to  every philosopher2 8coming  
into contact10 he says1 8with him in    
some  wonderful manner20 addressing the 
reason of those who1 like ,socrates1    
keep their reason pure1 not under the   
dominion of passion1 nor mixing  itself 
greatly with the body1 and therefore    
quick and sensitive in  responding to   
that which encountered it4    ,you see  
from these two extracts what questions  
were arising in the minds  of men1 and  
how they touched on ethical and         
theological questions4  ,i say  arising 
in their minds3 ,i believe that ,i ought
 to say rather1 stirred up  in their    
minds by ,one greater than they4  ,at   
all events1 there they  appeared1       
utterly independent of any ,christian   
teaching4  ,the belief in  this ,logos  
or ,dmon speaking to the ,reason of man1
 was one which neither  ,plutarch nor   

,marcus1 neither ,numenius nor          
,ammonius1 as far as we can see1  learnt
 from the ,christians2 it was the common
 ground which they held with  them2 the 
common battlefield which they disputed  
with them4    ,neither have we any      
reason to suppose that they learnt it   
from the  ,hindoos4  ,that much ,hindoo 
thought mixed with ,neoplatonist        
speculation we  cannot doubt2 but there 
is not a jot more evidence to prove that
  ,alexandrians borrowed this conception
 from the ,mahabharavata1 than that     
,george ,fox the ,quaker1 or the author 
of the 8,deutsche ,theologie10 did so4  
,they may have gone to ,hindoo          
philosophy1 or rather1 to second and    
third  hand traditions thereof1 for     
corroborations of the belief2 but be    
sure1  it must have existed in their own
 hearts first1 or they would never have 
gone thither4  ,believe it2 be sure of  
it4  ,no earnest thinker is a           
plagiarist pure and simple4  ,he will   
never borrow from others that which  he 

has not already1 more or less1 thought  
out for himself4  ,when once a  great   
idea1 instinctive1 inductive 7for the   
two expressions are nearer  akin than   
most fancy71 has dawned on his soul1 he 
will welcome lovingly1  awfully1 any    
corroboration from foreign schools1 and 
cry with joy3  8,behold1 this is not    
altogether a dream3 for others have     
found it also4  ,surely it must be real1
 universal1 eternal40  ,no2 be sure     
there is far  more originality 7in the  
common sense of the word71 and far less 
7in the  true sense of the word71 than  
we fancy2 and that it is a paltry and   
shallow doctrine which represents each  
succeeding school as merely the  puppets
 and dupes of the preceding4  ,more     
originality1 because each  earnest man  
seems to think out for himself the      
deepest grounds of his  creed4  ,less   
originality1 because1 as ,i believe1 one
 common ,logos1 ,word1  ,reason1 reveals
 and unveils the same eternal truth to  
all who seek and  hunger for it4        

,therefore we can1 as the ,christian    
philosophers of ,alexandria did1        
rejoice over every truth which their    
heathen adversaries beheld1 and         
attribute them1 as ,clement does1 to the
 highest source1 to the  inspiration of 
the one and universal ,logos4  ,with    
,clement1 philosophy is  only hurtful   
when it is untrue to itself1 and        
philosophy falsely so  called2 true     
philosophy is an image of the truth1 a  
divine gift bestowed  on the ,greeks4   
,the ,bible1 in his eyes1 asserts that  
all forms of art and  wisdom are from   
,god4  ,the wise in mind have no doubt  
some peculiar  endowment of nature1 but 
when they have offered themselves for   
their  work1 they receive a spirit of   
perception from the ,highest ,wisdom1   
giving  them a new fitness for it4  ,all
 severe study1 all cultivation of       
sympathy1 are exercises of this         
spiritual endowment4  ,the whole        
intellectual discipline of the ,greeks1 
with their philosophy1 came down  from  

,god to men4  ,philosophy1 he concludes 
in one place1 carries on 8an  inquiry   
concerning ,truth and the nature of     
,being2 and this ,truth is that         
concerning which the ,lord ,himself     
said3 #8,i am the ,truth4'  ,and when   
the  initiated find1 or rather receive1 
the true philosophy1 they have it from  
the ,truth itself2 that is from ,him who
 is true40    ,while1 then1 these two   
schools had so many grounds in common1  
where was  their point of divergence8   
,we shall find it1 ,i believe1 fairly   
expressed  in the dying words of        
,plotinus1 the great father of          
,neoplatonism4  8,i am  striving to     
bring the ,god which is in us into      
harmony with the ,god which  is in the  
universe40  ,whether or not ,plotinus   
actually so spoke1 that was  what his   
disciples not only said that he spoke1  
but what they would have  wished him to 
speak4  ,that one sentence expresses the
 whole object of  their philosophy4     
,but to that ,pantnus1 ,origen1         

,clement1 and ,augustine would have     
answered3  8,and we1 on the other hand1 
assert that the ,god which is in the    
universe1  is the same as the ,god which
 is in you1 and is striving to bring you
 into  harmony with ,himself40  ,there  
is the experimentum crucis4  ,there is  
the  vast gulf between the ,christian   
and the ,heathen schools1 which when any
  man had overleaped1 the whole problem 
of the universe was from that  moment   
inverted4  ,with ,plotinus and his      
school man is seeking for ,god3  with   
,clement and his1 ,god is seeking for   
man4  ,with the former1 ,god is         
passive1 and man active3 with the       
latter1 ,god is active1 man is          
passive--passive1 that is1 in so far as 
his business is to listen when he  is   
spoken to1 to look at the light which is
 unveiled to him1 to submit  himself to 
the inward laws which he feels reproving
 and checking him at  every turn1 as    
,socrates was reproved and checked by   
his inward ,dmon4    ,whether of these  

two theorems gives the higher conception
 either of the  ,divine ,being1 or of   
man1 ,i leave it for you to judge4  ,to 
those old  ,alexandrian ,christians1 a  
being who was not seeking after every   
single  creature1 and trying to raise   
him1 could not be a ,being of absolute  
,righteousness1 ,power1 ,love2 could not
 be a ,being worthy of respect or       
admiration1 even of philosophic         
speculation4  ,human righteousness and  
love flows forth disinterestedly to all 
around it1 however unconscious1  however
 unworthy they may be2 human power      
associated with goodness1 seeks  for    
objects which it may raise and benefit  
by that power4  ,we must  confess this1 
with the ,christian schools1 or1 with   
the ,heathen schools1  we must allow    
another theory1 which brought them into 
awful depths2 which  may bring any      
generation which holds it into the same 
depths4    ,if ,clement had asked the   
,neoplatonists3 8,you believe1          
,plotinus1 in an  absolutely ,good      

,being4  ,do you believe that it desires
 to shed forth its  goodness on all80   
8,of course10 they would have answered1 
8on those who  seek for it1 on the      
philosopher40    8,but not1 it seems1   
,plotinus1 on the herd1 the brutal1     
ignorant mass1  wallowing in those foul 
crimes above which you have risen80     
,and at that  question there would have 
been not a little hesitation4  ,these   
brutes in  human form1 these souls      
wallowing in earthly mire1 could hardly1
 in the  ,neoplatonists' eyes1 be       
objects of the ,divine desire4    8,then
 this ,absolute ,good1 you say1         
,plotinus1 has no relation with them1   
no care to raise them4  ,in fact1 it    
cannot raise them1 because they have    
nothing in common with it4  ,is that    
your notion80  ,and the ,neoplatonists  
would have1 on the whole1 allowed that  
argument4  ,and if ,clement had         
answered1 that such was not his notion  
of ,goodness1 or of a ,good ,being1  and
 that therefore the goodness of their   

,absolute ,good1 careless of the        
degradation and misery around it1 must  
be something very different from  his   
notions of human goodness2 the          
,neoplatonists would have               
answered--indeed they did               
answer--8,after all1 why not8  ,why     
should the  ,absolute ,goodness be like 
our human goodness80  ,this is          
,plotinus's own  belief4  ,it is a      
question with him1 it was still more a  
question with  those who came after him1
 whether virtues could be predicated of 
the  ,divine nature2 courage1 for       
instance1 of one who had nothing to     
fear2  self-restraint1 of one who had   
nothing to desire4  ,and thus1 by       
setting  up a different standard of     
morality for the divine and for the     
human1  ,plotinus gradually arrives at  
the conclusion1 that virtue is not the  
end1  but the means2 not the ,divine    
nature itself1 as the ,christian schools
  held1 but only the purgative process  
by which man was to ascend into  heaven1

 and which was necessary to arrive at   
that nature--that nature  itself        
being--what8    ,and how to answer that 
last question was the abysmal problem of
 the whole  of ,neoplatonic philosophy1 
in searching for which it wearied itself
 out1  generation after generation1 till
 tired equally of seeking and of        
speaking1 it fairly lay down and died4  
,in proportion as it refused to         
acknowledge a common divine nature with 
the degraded mass1 it deserted  its     
first healthy instinct1 which told it   
that the spiritual world is  identical  
with the moral world1 with right1 love1 
justice2 it tried to  find new          
definitions for the spiritual2 it       
conceived it to be identical  with the  
intellectual4  ,that did not satisfy its
 heart4  ,it had to  repeople the       
spiritual world1 which it had emptied of
 its proper  denizens1 with ghosts2 to  
reinvent the old dmonologies and        
polytheisms--from thence to descend into
 lower depths1 of which we will  speak  

hereafter4    ,but in the meanwhile we  
must look at another quarrel which arose
 between  the two twin schools of       
,alexandria4  ,the ,neoplatonists said  
that there is  a divine element in man4 
,the ,christian philosophers assented   
fervently1  and raised the old          
disagreeable question3 8,is it in every 
man8  ,in the  publicans and harlots as 
well as in the philosophers8  ,we say   
that it  is40  ,and there again the     
,neoplatonist finds it over hard to     
assent to a  doctrine1 equally contrary 
to outward appearance1 and galling to   
,pharisaic pride2 and enters into a     
hundred honest self-puzzles and         
self-contradictions1 which seem to      
justify him at last in saying1 ,no4  ,it
  is in the philosopher1 who is ready by
 nature1 as ,plotinus has it1 and as  it
 were furnished with wings1 and not     
needing to sever himself from  matter   
like the rest1 but disposed already to  
ascend to that which is  above4  ,and in
 a degree too1 it is in the 8lover10    

who1 according to  ,plotinus1 has a     
certain innate recollection of beauty1  
and hovers round  it1 and desires it1   
wherever he sees it4  ,him you may raise
 to the  apprehension of the one        
incorporeal ,beauty1 by teaching him to 
separate  beauty from the various       
objects in which it appears scattered   
and  divided4  ,and it is even in the   
third class1 the lowest of whom there is
  hope1 namely1 the musical man1 capable
 of being passively affected by  beauty1
 without having any active appetite for 
it2 the sentimentalist1 in  short1 as we
 should call him nowadays4    ,but for  
the herd1 ,plotinus cannot say that     
there is anything divine in  them4  ,and
 thus it gradually comes out in all     
,neoplatonist writings which  ,i have   
yet examined1 that the ,divine only     
exists in a man1 in proportion  as he is
 conscious of its existence in him4     
,from which spring two  conceptions of  
the ,divine in man4  ,first1 is it a    
part of him1 if it is  dependent for its

 existence on his consciousness of it8  
,or is it1 as  ,philo1 ,plutarch1       
,marcus ,aurelius would have held1 as   
the ,christians held1  something        
independent of him1 without him1 a      
,logos or ,word speaking to  his reason 
and conscience8  ,with this question    
,plotinus grapples1  earnestly1         
shrewdly1 fairly4  ,if you wish to see  
how he does it1 you  should read the    
fourth and fifth books of the sixth     
,ennead1 especially if  you be lucky    
enough to light on a copy of that rare  
book1 ,taylor's  faithful though crabbed
 translation4    ,not that the result of
 his search is altogether satisfactory4 
,he enters  into subtle and severe      
disquisitions concerning soul4  ,whether
 it is one  or many4  ,how it can be    
both one and many4  ,he has the         
strongest  perception that1 to use the  
noble saying of the ,germans1 8,time and
 ,space  are no gods40  ,he sees clearly
 that the soul1 and the whole unseen    
world  of truly existing being1 is      

independent of time and space3 and yet1 
after  he has wrestled with the two     
,titans1 through page after page1 and   
apparently conquered them1 they slip in 
again unawares into the  battle-field1  
the moment his back is turned4  ,he     
denies that the one  ,reason has        
parts--it must exist as a whole         
wheresoever it exists3 and yet  he      
cannot express the relation of the      
individual soul to it1 but by  saying   
that we are parts of it2 or that each   
thing1 down to the lowest1  receives as 
much soul as it is capable of           
possessing4  ,ritter has worked  out at 
length1 though in a somewhat dry and    
lifeless way1 the hundred               
contradictions of this kind which you   
meet in ,plotinus2 contradictions  which
 ,i suspect to be inseparable from any  
philosophy starting from his  grounds4  
,is he not looking for the spiritual in 
a region where it does  not exist2 in   
the region of logical conceptions and   
abstractions1 which  are not realities1 

but only1 after all1 symbols of our own1
 whereby we  express to ourselves the   
processes of our own brain8  ,may not   
his  ,christian contemporaries have been
 nearer scientific truth1 as well as    
nearer the common sense and practical   
belief of mankind1 in holding that  that
 which is spiritual is personal1 and can
 only be seen or conceived of  as       
residing in persons2 and that that which
 is personal is moral1 and has  to do1  
not with abstractions of the intellect1 
but with right and wrong1  love and     
hate1 and all which1 in the common      
instincts of men1 involves a  free will1
 a free judgment1 a free responsibility 
and desert8 ,and that1  therefore1 if   
there were a ,spirit1 a ,dmonic         
,element1 an universal  ,reason1 a      
,logos1 a ,divine ,element1 closely     
connected with man1 that one  ,reason1  
that one ,divine ,element1 must be a    
person also8  ,at least1 so  strong was 
the instinct of even the ,heathen       
schools in this direction1  that the    

followers of ,plotinus had to fill up   
the void which yawned  between man and  
the invisible things after which he     
yearned1 by reviving  the whole old     
,pagan ,polytheism1 and adding to it a  
,dmonology borrowed  partly from the    
,chaldees1 and partly from the ,jewish  
rabbis1 which formed  a descending chain
 of persons1 downward from the highest  
,deities to  heroes1 and to the guardian
 angel of each man2 the meed of the     
philosopher being1 that by self-culture 
and self-restraint he could rise  above 
the tutelage of some lower and more     
earthly dmon1 and become the  pupil of a
 ,god1 and finally a ,god himself4      
,these contradictions need not lower the
 great ,father of ,neoplatonism in  our 
eyes1 as a moral being4  ,all accounts  
of him seem to prove him to  have been  
what ,apollo1 in a lengthy oracle1      
declared him to have been1  8good and   
gentle1 and benignant exceedingly1 and  
pleasant in all his  conversation40  ,he
 gave good advice about earthly matters1

 was a faithful  steward of moneys      
deposited with him1 a guardian of widows
 and orphans1 a  righteous and loving   
man4  ,in his practical life1 the       
ascetic and gnostic  element comes out  
strongly enough4  ,the body1 with him1  
was not evil1  neither was it good2 it  
was simply nothing--why care about it8  
,he would  have no portrait taken of his
 person3 8,it was humiliating enough to 
be  obliged to carry a shadow about with
 him1 without having a shadow made of   
that shadow40  ,he refused animal food1 
abstained from baths1 declined  medicine
 in his last illness1 and so died about 
#bjj ,a4,d4    ,it is in his followers1 
as one generally sees in such cases1    
that the  weakness of his conceptions   
comes out4  ,plotinus was an earnest    
thinker1  slavishly enough reverencing  
the opinion of ,plato1 whom he quotes as
 an  infallible oracle1 with a 8,he     
says10 as if there were but one he in   
the  universe3 but he tried honestly to 
develop ,plato1 or what he conceived to 

be ,plato1 on the method which ,plato   
had laid down4  ,his dialectic is far   
superior1 both in quantity and in       
quality1 to that of those who come      
after him4  ,he is a seeker4  ,his      
followers are not4  ,the great work     
which  marks the second stage of his    
school is not an inquiry1 but a         
justification1 not only of the          
,egyptian1 but of all possible theurgies
  and superstitions2 perhaps the best   
attempt of the kind which the world  has
 ever seen2 that which marks the third  
is a mere cloud-castle1 an  inverted    
pyramid1 not of speculation1 but of     
dogmatic assertion1 patched  together   
from all accessible rags and bones of   
the dead world4  ,some here  will1      
perhaps1 guess from my rough            
descriptions1 that ,i speak of          
,iamblichus and ,proclus4    ,whether or
 not ,iamblichus wrote the famous work  
usually attributed to  him1 which       
describes itself as the letter of       
,abamnon the ,teacher to  ,porphyry1 he 

became the head of that school of       
,neoplatonists who fell  back on theurgy
 and magic1 and utterly swallowed up the
 more rational1  though more hopeless1  
school of ,porphyry4  ,not that         
,porphyry1 too1 with  all his dislike of
 magic and the vulgar superstitions--a  
dislike  intimately connected with his  
loudly expressed dislike of the common  
herd1 and therefore of ,christianity1 as
 a religion for the common  herd--did   
not believe a fact or two1 which looks  
to us1 nowadays1 somewhat               
unphilosophical4  ,from him we learn    
that one ,ammonius1 trying to crush     
,plotinus by magic arts1 had his weapons
 so completely turned against  himself1 
that all his limbs were contracted4     
,from him we learn that  ,plotinus1     
having summoned in the temple of ,isis  
his familiar spirit1 a  god1 and not a  
mere dmon1 appeared4  ,he writes        
sensibly enough however  to one ,anebos1
 an ,egyptian priest1 stating his doubts
 as to the popular  notions of the      

,gods1 as beings subject to human       
passions and vices1 and  of theurgy and 
magic1 as material means of compelling  
them to appear1 or  alluring them to    
favour man4  ,the answer of ,abamnon1   
,anebos1 ,iamblichus1  or whoever the   
real author may have been1 is worthy of 
perusal by every  metaphysical student1 
as a curious phase of thought1 not      
confined to that  time1 but rife1 under 
some shape or other1 in every age of the
 world's  history1 and in this as much  
as in any4  ,there are many passages    
full of  eloquence1 many more full of   
true and noble thought3 but on the      
whole1 it  is the sewing of new cloth   
into an old garment2 the attempt to suit
 the  old superstition to the new one1  
by eclectically picking and choosing1   
and special pleading1 on both sides2 but
 the rent is only made worse4  ,there is
 no base superstition which ,abamnon    
does not unconsciously  justify4  ,and  
yet he is rapidly losing sight of the   
real eternal human  germs of truth round

 which those superstitions clustered1   
and is really  further from truth and   
reason than old ,homer or ,hesiod1      
because further  from the simple1       
universal1 everyday facts1 and          
relations1 and duties of  man1 which    
are1 after all1 among the most          
mysterious1 and also among the  most    
sacred objects which man can            
contemplate4    ,it was not wonderful1  
however1 that ,neoplatonism took the    
course it did4  ,spirit1 they felt      
rightly1 was meant to rule matter2 it   
was to be freed  from matter only for   
that very purpose4  ,no one could well  
deny that4  ,the philosopher1 as he rose
 and became1 according to ,plotinus1 a  
god1 or  at least approached toward the 
gods1 must partake of some mysterious   
and  transcendental power4  ,no one     
could well deny that conclusion1        
granting  the premiss4  ,but of what    
power8  ,what had he to show as the     
result of  his intimate communion with  
an unseen ,being8  ,the ,christian      

,schools1 who  held that the spiritual  
is the moral1 answered accordingly4  ,he
 must show  righteousness1 and love1 and
 peace in a ,holy ,spirit4  ,that is the
  likeness of ,god4  ,in proportion as a
 man has them1 he is partaker of a      
,divine nature4  ,he can rise no higher1
 and he needs no more4  ,platonists  had
 said--,no1 that is only virtue2 and    
virtue is the means1 not the end4  ,we  
want proof of having something above    
that2 something more than any man  of   
the herd1 any ,christian slave1 can     
perform2 something above nature2        
portents and wonders4  ,so they set to  
work to perform wonders2 and  succeeded1
 ,i suppose1 more or less4  ,for now one
 enters into a whole  fairyland of those
 very phenomena which are puzzling us so
  nowadays--ecstasy1 clairvoyance1      
insensibility to pain1 cures produced by
  the effect of what we now call        
mesmerism4  ,they are all there1 these  
modern puzzles1 in those old books of   
the long bygone seekers for wisdom4  ,it

 makes us love them1 while it saddens us
 to see that their difficulties  were   
the same as ours1 and that there is     
nothing new under the sun4  ,of  course1
 a great deal of it all was             
8imagination40  ,but the question then1 
as now is1 what is this wonder-working  
imagination8--unless the word be  used  
as a mere euphemism for lying1 which    
really1 in many cases1 is  hardly fair4 
,we cannot wonder at the old            
,neoplatonists for attributing  these   
strange phenomena to spiritual          
influence1 when we see some who  ought  
to know better doing the same thing now2
 and others1 who more  wisely believe   
them to be strictly physical and        
nervous1 so utterly  unable to give     
reasons for them1 that they feel it     
expedient to ignore  them for awhile1   
till they know more about those physical
 phenomena which  can be put under some 
sort of classification1 and attributed  
to some sort  of inductive law4    ,but 
again4  ,these ecstasies1 cures1 and so 

forth1 brought them rapidly  back to the
 old priestcrafts4  ,the ,egyptian      
priests1 the ,babylonian and  ,jewish   
sorcerers1 had practised all this as a  
trade for ages1 and reduced  it to an   
art4  ,it was by sleeping in the temples
 of the deities1 after  due mesmeric    
manipulations1 that cures were even then
 effected4  ,surely  the old priests    
were the people to whom to go for       
information4  ,the old  philosophers of 
,greece were venerable4  ,how much more 
those of the ,east1  in comparison with 
whom the ,greeks were children8         
,besides1 if these  dmons and deities   
were so near them1 might it not be      
possible to behold  them8  ,they seemed 
to have given up caring much for the    
world and its  course--                 
,effugerant adytis templisque relictis  
,d quibus imperium steterat4    ,the old
 priests used to make them              
appear--perhaps they might do it again4 
,and if spirit could act directly and   
preternaturally on matter1 in spite  of 

the laws of matter1 perhaps matter might
 act on spirit4  ,after all1  were      
matter and spirit so absolutely         
different8  ,was not spirit some sort   
of pervading essence1 some subtle       
ethereal fluid1 differing from matter   
principally in being less gross and     
dense8  ,this was the point to which    
they went down rapidly enough2 the point
 to which all philosophies1 ,i  firmly  
believe1 will descend1 which do not keep
 in sight that the  spiritual means the 
moral4  ,in trying to make it mean      
exclusively the  intellectual1 they will
 degrade it to mean the merely logical  
and  abstract2 and when that is found to
 be a barren and lifeless phantom1 a    
mere projection of the human brain1     
attributing reality to mere  conceptions
 and names1 and confusing the subject   
with the object1 as  logicians say truly
 the ,neoplatonists did1 then in        
despair1 the school  will try to make   
the spiritual something real1 or1 at    
least1 something  conceivable1 by       

reinvesting it with the properties of   
matter1 and talking  of it as if it were
 some manner of gas1 or heat1 or        
electricity1 or  force1 pervading time  
and space1 conditioned by the accidents 
of brute  matter1 and a part of that    
nature which is born to die4    ,the    
culmination of all this confusion we see
 in ,proclus4  ,the unfortunate         
,hypatia1 who is the most important     
personage between him and ,iamblichus1  
has left no writings to our times2 we   
can only judge of her doctrine by  that 
of her instructors and her pupils4      
,proclus was taught by the men  who had 
heard her lecture2 and the golden chain 
of the ,platonic  succession descended  
from her to him4  ,his throne1 however1 
was at  ,athens1 not at ,alexandria4    
,after the murder of the maiden         
philosopher1  ,neoplatonism prudently   
retired to ,greece4  ,but ,proclus is so
 essentially  the child of the          
,alexandrian school that we cannot pass 
him over4  ,indeed1 according to ,m4    

,cousin1 as ,i am credibly informed1 he 
is the  ,greek philosopher2 the flower  
and crown of all its schools2 in whom1  
says  the learned ,frenchman1 8are      
combined1 and from whom shine forth1 in 
no  irregular or uncertain rays1        
,orpheus1 ,pythagoras1 ,plato1          
,aristotle1 ,zeno1  ,plotinus1          
,porphyry1 and ,iamblichus20 and who    
8had so comprehended all  religions in  
his mind1 and paid them such equal      
reverence1 that he was1  as it were1 the
 priest of the whole universe60    ,i   
have not the honour of knowing much of  
,m4 ,cousin's works4  ,i never came     
across them but on one small matter of  
fact1 and on that ,i found him  copying 
at second hand an anachronism which one 
would have conceived  palpable to any   
reader of the original authorities4     
,this is all ,i know  of him1 saving    
these his raptures over ,proclus1 of    
which ,i have quoted  only a small      
portion1 and of which ,i can only say1  
in ,mr4 ,thomas  ,carlyle's words1      

8,what things men will worship1 in their
 extreme need60  ,other moderns1        
however1 have expressed their admiration
 of ,proclus2 and1  no doubt1 many neat 
sayings may be found in him 7for after  
all he was a  ,greek71 which will be    
both pleasing and useful to those who   
consider  philosophic method to consist 
in putting forth strings of brilliant   
apophthegms1 careless about either their
 consistency or coherence3 but of  the  
method of ,plato or ,aristotle1 any more
 than of that of ,kant or ,mill1  you   
will find nothing in him4  ,he seems to 
my simplicity to be at once  the most   
timid and servile of commentators1 and  
the most cloudy of  declaimers4  ,he can
 rave symbolism like ,jacob ,bhmen1 but 
without an atom  of his originality and 
earnestness4  ,he can develop an        
inverted pyramid  of dmonology1 like    
,father ,newman himself1 but without an 
atom of his  art1 his knowledge of human
 cravings4  ,he combines all schools1   
truly1  ,chaldee and ,egyptian as well  

as ,greek2 but only scraps from their   
mummies1 drops from their quintessences1
 which satisfy the heart and  conscience
 as little as they do the logical       
faculties4  ,his ,greek gods  and       
heroes1 even his ,alcibiades and        
,socrates1 are 8ideas20 that is1        
symbols of certain notions or qualities3
 their flesh and bones1 their  heart and
 brain1 have been distilled away1 till  
nothing is left but a  word1 a notion1  
which may patch a hole in his huge      
heaven-and-earth-embracing system4  ,he1
 too1 is a commentator and a  deducer2  
all has been discovered2 and he tries to
 discover nothing more4  ,those who     
followed him seem to have commented on  
his comments4  ,with him  ,neoplatonism 
properly ends4  ,is its last utterance a
 culmination or a  fall8  ,have the     
,titans sealed heaven1 or died of old   
age1 8exhibiting10  as ,gibbon says of  
them1 8a deplorable instance of the     
senility of the  human mind80 ,read     
,proclus1 and judge for yourselves3 but 

first contrive  to finish everything    
else you have to do which can possibly  
be useful to  any human being4  ,life is
 short1 and ,art--at least the art of   
obtaining  practical guidance from the  
last of the ,alexandrians--very long4   
,and yet--if ,proclus and his school    
became gradually unfaithful to the      
great root-idea of their philosophy1 we 
must not imitate them4  ,we must  not   
believe that the last of the            
,alexandrians was under no divine       
teaching1 because he had be-systemed    
himself into confused notions of  what  
that teaching was like4  ,yes1 there was
 good in poor old ,proclus2  and it too 
came from the only source whence all    
good comes4  ,were there  no good in him
 ,i could not laugh at him as ,i have   
done2 ,i could only hate  him4  ,there  
are moments when he rises above his     
theories2 moments when he  recurs in    
spirit1 if not in the letter1 to the    
faith of ,homer1 almost to  the faith of
 ,philo4  ,whether these are the        

passages of his which his  modern       
admirers prize most1 ,i cannot tell4  ,i
 should fancy not3  nevertheless ,i will
 read you one of them4    ,he is about  
to commence his discourses on the       
,parmenides1 that book in  which we     
generally now consider that ,plato has  
been most untrue to  himself1 and fallen
 from his usual inductive method to the 
ground of a  mere  priori theoriser--and
 yet of which ,proclus is reported to   
have  said1 and1 ,i should conceive1    
said honestly1 that if it1 the ,timus1  
and  the ,orphic fragments were         
preserved1 he did not care whether every
 other  book on earth were destroyed4   
,but how does he commence8    8,i pray  
to all the gods and goddesses to guide  
my reason in the  speculation which lies
 before me1 and having kindled in me the
 pure light  of truth1 to direct my mind
 upward to the very knowledge of the    
things  which are1 and to open the doors
 of my soul to receive the divine       
guidance of ,plato1 and1 having directed

 my knowledge into the very  brightness 
of being1 to withdraw me from the       
various forms of opinion1  from the     
apparent wisdom1 from the wandering     
about things which do not  exist1 by    
that purest intellectual exercise about 
the things which do  exist1 whereby     
alone the eye of the soul is nourished  
and brightened1 as  ,socrates says in   
the ,phdrus2 and that the ,noetic ,gods 
will give to me  the perfect reason1 and
 the ,noeric ,gods the power which leads
 up to this1  and that the rulers of the
 ,universe above the heaven will impart 
to me an  energy unshaken by material   
notions and emancipated from them1 and  
those  to whom the world is given as    
their dominion a winged life1 and the   
angelic choirs a true manifestation of  
divine things1 and the good dmons  the  
fulness of the inspiration which comes  
from the ,gods1 and the heroes  a grand1
 and venerable1 and lofty fixedness of  
mind1 and the whole divine  race        
together a perfect preparation for      

sharing in ,plato's most mystical  and  
far-seeing speculations1 which he       
declares to us himself in the           
,parmenides1 with the profundity        
befitting such topics1 but which he     
7i4e4 his master ,syrianus7 completed by
 his most pure and luminous             
apprehensions1 who did most truly share 
the ,platonic feast1 and was the  medium
 for transmitting the divine truth1 the 
guide in our speculations1  and the     
hierophant of these divine words2 who1  
as ,i think1 came down as a  type of    
philosophy1 to do good to the souls that
 are here1 in place of  idols1          
sacrifices1 and the whole mystery of    
purification1 a leader of  salvation to 
the men who are now and who shall be    
hereafter4  ,and may the  whole band of 
those who are above us be propitious2   
and may the whole  force which they     
supply be at hand1 kindling before us   
that light which1  proceeding from them1
 may guide us to them40    ,surely this 
is an interesting document4  ,the last  

,pagan ,greek prayer1 ,i  believe1 which
 we have on record2 the death-wail of   
the old world--not  without a touch of  
melody4  ,one cannot altogether admire  
the style2 it is  inflated1 pedantic1   
written1 ,i fear1 with a considerable   
consciousness  that he was saying the   
right thing and in the very finest way3 
but still  it is a prayer4  ,a cry for  
light--by no means1 certainly1 like that
 noble  one in ,tennyson's 8,in         
,memoriam30        ,so runs my dream4   
,but what am ,i8         ,an infant     
crying in the night2         ,an infant 
crying for the light2      ,and with no 
language but a cry4    ,yet he asks for 
light3 perhaps he had settled already   
for himself--like  too many more of     
us--what sort of light he chose to have3
 but still the  eye is turned upward to 
the sun1 not inward in conceited fancy  
that self  is its own illumination4  ,he
 asks--surely not in vain4  ,there was  
light to  be had for asking4  ,that     
prayer certainly was not answered in the

 letter3  it may have been ere now in   
the spirit4  ,and yet it is a sad prayer
  enough4  ,poor old man1 and poor old  
philosophy6    ,this he and his teachers
 had gained by despising the simpler and
 yet far  profounder doctrine of the    
,christian schools1 that the ,logos1 the
 ,divine  ,teacher in whom both         
,christians and ,heathens believed1 was 
the very  archetype of men1 and that ,he
 had proved that fact by being made     
flesh1  and dwelling bodily among them1 
that they might behold ,his glory1 full 
of  grace and truth1 and see that it was
 at once the perfection of man and  the 
perfection of ,god3 that that which was 
most divine was most human1  and that   
which was most human1 most divine4      
,that was the outcome of  their         
metaphysic1 that they had found the     
,absolute ,one2 because ,one  existed in
 whom the apparent antagonism between   
that which is eternally  and that which 
becomes in time1 between the ideal and  
the actual1 between  the spiritual and  

the material1 in a word1 between ,god   
and man1 was  explained and reconciled  
for ever4    ,and ,proclus's prayer1 on 
the other hand1 was the outcome of the  
,neoplatonists' metaphysic1 the end of  
all their search after the ,one1  the   
,indivisible1 the ,absolute1 this cry to
 all manner of innumerable  phantoms1   
ghosts of ideas1 ghosts of traditions1  
neither things nor  persons1 but        
thoughts1 to give the philosopher each  
something or other1  according to the   
nature of each4  ,not that he very      
clearly defines what  each is to give   
him2 but still he feels himself in want 
of all manner of  things1 and it is as  
well to have as many friends at court as
  possible--,noetic ,gods1 ,noeric      
,gods1 rulers1 angels1 dmons1 heroes--to
  enable him to do what8  ,to understand
 ,plato's most mystical and  far-seeing 
speculations4  ,the ,eternal ,nous1 the 
,intellectual ,teacher has  vanished    
further and further off2 further off    
still some dim vision of a  supreme     

,goodness4  ,infinite spaces above that 
looms through the mist of  the abyss a  
,primval ,one4  ,but even that has a    
predicate1 for it is one2  it is not    
pure essence4  ,must there not be       
something beyond that again1  which is  
not even one1 but is nameless1          
inconceivable1 absolute8  ,what an      
abyss6  ,how shall the human mind find  
anything whereon to rest1 in the  vast  
nowhere between it and the object of its
 search8  ,the search after  the ,one   
issues in a wail to the innumerable2 and
 kind gods1 angels1 and  heroes1 not    
human indeed1 but still conceivable     
enough to satisfy at  least the         
imagination1 step in to fill the void1  
as they have done since1  and may do    
again2 and so1 as ,mr4 ,carlyle has it1 
8the bottomless pit got  roofed over10  
as it may be again ere long4    ,are we 
then to say1 that ,neoplatonism was a   
failure8  ,that ,alexandria1  during    
four centuries of profound and earnest  
thought1 added nothing8  ,heaven forbid 

that we should say so of a philosophy   
which has exercised  on ,european       
thought1 at the crisis of its noblest   
life and action1 an  influence as great 
as did the ,aristotelian system during  
the ,middle ,ages4  ,we must never      
forget1 that during the two centuries   
which commence with  the fall of        
,constantinople1 and end with our civil 
wars1 not merely  almost all great      
thinkers1 but courtiers1 statesmen1     
warriors1 poets1  were more or less     
,neoplatonists4  ,the ,greek            
grammarians1 who migrated  into ,italy1 
brought with them the works of          
,plotinus1 ,iamblichus1 and  ,proclus2  
and their gorgeous reveries were        
welcomed eagerly by the  ,european mind1
 just revelling in the free thought of  
youthful manhood4  ,and yet the         
,alexandrian impotence for any practical
 and social purposes  was to be         
manifested1 as utterly as it was in     
,alexandria or in ,athens of  old4      
,ficinus and ,picus of ,mirandola worked

 no deliverance1 either for  ,italian   
morals or polity1 at a time when such   
deliverance was needed  bitterly enough4
  ,neoplatonism was petted by luxurious 
and heathen popes1  as an elegant play  
of the cultivated fancy1 which could do 
their real  power1 their practical      
system1 neither good nor harm4  ,and one
 cannot  help feeling1 while reading the
 magnificent oration on ,supra-sensual  
,love1 which ,castiglione1 in his       
admirable book 8,the ,courtier10 puts   
into  the mouth of the profligate       
,bembo1 how near mysticism may lie not  
merely  to dilettantism or to           
,pharisaism1 but to sensuality itself4  
,but in  ,england1 during ,elizabeth's  
reign1 the practical weakness of        
,neoplatonism  was compensated by the   
noble practical life which men were     
compelled to  live in those great times2
 by the strong hold which they had of   
the ideas  of family and national life1 
of law and personal faith4  ,and ,i     
cannot but  believe it to have been a   

mighty gain to such men as ,sidney1     
,raleigh1 and  ,spenser1 that they had  
drunk1 however slightly1 of the wells of
 ,proclus  and ,plotinus4  ,one cannot  
read ,spenser's 8,fairy ,queen10 above  
all his  ,garden of ,adonis1 and his    
cantos on ,mutability1 without feeling  
that his  ,neoplatonism must have kept  
him safe from many a dark eschatological
  superstition1 many a narrow and bitter
 dogmatism1 which was even then         
tormenting the ,english mind1 and must  
have helped to give him altogether  a   
freer and more loving conception1 if not
 a consistent or accurate one1  of the  
wondrous harmony of that mysterious     
analogy between the physical  and the   
spiritual1 which alone makes poetry 7and
 ,i had almost said  philosophy also7   
possible1 and have taught him to behold 
alike in suns  and planets1 in flowers  
and insects1 in man and in beings higher
 than  man1 one glorious order of love  
and wisdom1 linking them all to ,him    
from  whom they all proceed1 rays from  

,his cloudless sunlight1 mirrors of ,his
  eternal glory4    ,but as the         
,elizabethan age1 exhausted by its own  
fertility1 gave place to  the ,caroline1
 ,neoplatonism ran through much the same
 changes4  ,it was  good for us1 after  
all1 that the plain strength of the     
,puritans1  unphilosophical as they     
were1 swept it away4  ,one feels in     
reading the  later ,neoplatonists1      
,henry ,more1 ,smith1 even ,cudworth    
7valuable as he  is71 that the old      
accursed distinction between the        
philosopher1 the  scholar1 the          
illuminate1 and the plain righteous man1
 was growing up  again very fast4  ,the 
school from which the 8,religio ,medici0
 issued was  not likely to make any bad 
men good1 or any foolish men wise4      
,besides1 as long as men were continuing
 to quote poor old ,proclus as an       
irrefragable authority1 and believing   
that he1 forsooth1 represented the      
sense of ,plato1 the new-born ,baconian 
philosophy had but little chance in  the

 world4  ,bacon had been right in his   
dislike of ,platonism years  before1    
though he was unjust to ,plato himself4 
,it was ,proclus whom he  was really    
reviling2 ,proclus as ,plato's          
commentator and representative4  ,the   
lion had for once got into the ass's    
skin1 and was treated  accordingly4     
,the true ,platonic method1 that        
dialectic which the  ,alexandrians      
gradually abandoned1 remains yet to be  
tried1 both in  ,england and in         
,germany2 and ,i am much mistaken1 if1  
when fairly used1 it  be not found the  
ally1 not the enemy1 of the ,baconian   
philosophy2 in  fact1 the inductive     
method applied to words1 as the         
expressions of  ,metaphysic ,laws1      
instead of to natural phenomena1 as the 
expressions of  ,physical ones4  ,if you
 wish to see the highest instances of   
this method1  read ,plato himself1 not  
,proclus4  ,if you wish to see how the  
same method  can be applied to          
,christian truth1 read the dialectic    

passages in  ,augustine's               
8,confessions40  ,whether or not you    
shall agree with their  conclusions1 you
 will not be likely1 if you have a truly
 scientific habit  of mind1 to complain 
that they want either profundity1       
severity1 or  simplicity4    ,so        
concludes the history of one of the     
,alexandrian schools of ,metaphysic4    
,what was the fate of the other is a    
subject which ,i must postpone to my    
next ,lecture4          ,,lecture ,,iv4 
,,the ,,cross ,,and ,,the ,,crescent4   
,i ,,tried to point out1 in my last     
,lecture1 the causes which led to the   
decay of the ,pagan metaphysic of       
,alexandria4  ,we have now to consider  
the  fate of the ,christian school4     
,you may have remarked that ,i have said
 little or nothing about the  positive  
dogmas of ,clement1 ,origen1 and their  
disciples2 but have only  brought out   
the especial points of departure between
 them and the  ,heathens4  ,my reason   
for so doing was twofold3 first1 ,i     

could not have  examined them without   
entering on controversial ground2 next1 
,i am very  desirous to excite some of  
my hearers1 at least1 to examine these  
questions for themselves4    ,i entreat 
them not to listen to the hasty sneer to
 which many of late  have given way1    
that the ,alexandrian divines were mere 
mystics1 who  corrupted ,christianity by
 an admixture of ,oriental and ,greek   
thought4  ,my  own belief is that they  
expanded and corroborated ,christianity1
 in spite  of great errors and defects  
on certain points1 far more than they   
corrupted it2 that they presented it to 
the minds of cultivated and  scientific 
men in the only form in which it would  
have satisfied their  philosophic       
aspirations1 and yet contrived1 with    
wonderful wisdom1 to  ground their      
philosophy on the very same truths which
 they taught to the  meanest slaves1 and
 to appeal in the philosophers to the   
same inward  faculty to which they      
appealed in the slave2 namely1 to that  

inward eye1  that moral sense and       
reason1 whereby each and every man can1 
if he will1  8judge of himself that     
which is right40  ,i boldly say that ,i 
believe the  ,alexandrian ,christians to
 have made the best1 perhaps the only1  
attempt  yet made by men1 to proclaim a 
true world-philosophy2 whereby ,i mean a
  philosophy common to all races1 ranks1
 and intellects1 embracing the  whole   
phenomena of humanity1 and not an       
arbitrarily small portion of  them1 and 
capable of being understood and         
appreciated by every human  being from  
the highest to the lowest4  ,and when   
you hear of a system of  reserve in     
teaching1 a disciplina arcani1 of an    
esoteric and exoteric1  an inner and    
outer school1 among these men1 you must 
not be frightened at  the words1 as if  
they spoke of priestcraft1 or an        
intellectual  aristocracy1 who kept the 
kernel of the nut for themselves1 and   
gave the  husks to the mob4  ,it was not
 so with the ,christian schools2 it was 

so  with the ,heathen ones4  ,the       
,heathens were content that the mob1 the
 herd1  should have the husks4  ,their  
avowed intention and wish was to leave  
the  herd1 as they called them1 in the  
mere outward observance of the old      
idolatries1 while they themselves1 the  
cultivated philosophers1 had the        
monopoly of those deeper spiritual      
truths which were contained under the   
old superstitions1 and were too sacred  
to be profaned by the vulgar eyes4  ,the
 ,christian method was the exact        
opposite4  ,they boldly called those    
vulgar eyes to enter into the very holy 
of holies1 and there gaze on the  very  
deepest root-ideas of their philosophy4 
,they owned no ground for  their own    
speculations which was not common to the
 harlots and the slaves  around4  ,and  
this was what enabled them to do this2  
this was what brought  on them the      
charge of demagogism1 the hatred of     
philosophers1 the  persecution of       
princes--that their ground was a moral  

ground1 and not a  merely intellectual  
one2 that they started1 not from any    
notions of the  understanding1 but from 
the inward conscience1 that truly pure  
,reason in  which the intellectual and  
the moral spheres are united1 which they
  believed to exist1 however dimmed or  
crushed1 in every human being1  capable 
of being awakened1 purified1 and raised 
up to a noble and heroic  life4  ,they  
concealed nothing moral from their      
disciples3 only they  forbade them to   
meddle with intellectual matters1 before
 they had had a  regular intellectual   
training4  ,the witnesses of reason and 
conscience  were sufficient guides for  
all men1 and at them the many might well
 stop  short4  ,the teacher only needed 
to proceed further1 not into a higher   
region1 but into a lower one1 namely1   
into the region of the logical          
understanding1 and there make deductions
 from1 and illustrations of1  those     
higher truths which he held in common   
with every slave1 and held on  the same 

ground as they4    ,and the consequence 
of this method of philosophising was    
patent4  ,they  were enabled to produce1
 in the lives of millions1 generation   
after  generation1 a more immense moral 
improvement than the world had ever seen
  before4  ,their disciples did actually
 become righteous and good men1 just  in
 proportion as they were true to the    
lessons they learnt4  ,they did1  for   
centuries1 work a distinct and palpable 
deliverance on the earth2  while all the
 solemn and earnest meditation of the   
,neoplatonists1 however  good or true1  
worked no deliverance whatsoever4       
,plotinus longed at one  time to make a 
practical attempt4  ,he asked the       
,emperor ,gallienus1 his  patron1 to    
rebuild for him a city in ,campania2 to 
allow him to call it  ,platonopolis1 and
 put it into the hands of him and his   
disciples1 that  they might there       
realise ,plato's ideal republic4        
,luckily for the  reputation of         
,neoplatonism1 the scheme was swamped by

 the courtiers of  ,gallienus1 and the  
earth was saved the sad and ludicrous   
sight of a  realised ,laputa2 probably a
 very quarrelsome one4  ,that was his   
highest  practical conception3 the      
foundation of a new society3 not the    
regeneration of society as it existed4  
,that work was left for the ,christian  
schools2 and up to a certain point  they
 performed it4  ,they made men good4    
,this was the test1 which of  the       
schools was in the right3 this was the  
test1 which of the two had  hold of the 
eternal roots of metaphysic4  ,cicero   
says1 that he had learnt  more          
philosophy from the ,laws of the ,twelve
 ,tables than from all the  ,greeks4    
,clement and his school might have said 
the same of the ,hebrew  ,ten           
,commandments and ,jewish ,law1 which   
are so marvellously analogous to  the   
old ,roman laws1 founded1 as they are1  
on the belief in a ,supreme  ,being1 a  
,jupiter--literally a ,heavenly         
,father--who is the source and the      

sanction of law2 of whose justice man's 
justice is the pattern2 who is  the     
avenger of crimes against marriage1     
property1 life2 on whom depends  the    
sanctity of an oath4  ,and so1 to       
compare great things with small1  there 
was a truly practical human element here
 in the ,christian teaching2  purely    
ethical and metaphysical1 and yet       
palpable to the simplest and  lowest1   
which gave to it a regenerating force   
which the highest efforts  of           
,neoplatonism could never attain4       
,and yet ,alexandrian ,christianity1    
notoriously enough1 rotted away1 and    
perished hideously4  ,most true4  ,but  
what if the causes of its decay and     
death were owing to its being untrue to 
itself8    ,i do not say that they had  
no excuses for being untrue to their own
  faith4  ,we are not here to judge     
them4  ,that peculiar subtlety of mind1 
which rendered the ,alexandrians the    
great thinkers of the then world1 had   
with ,christians1 as well as ,heathens1 

the effect of alluring them away  from  
practice to speculation4  ,the          
,christian school1 as was to be         
expected from the moral ground of their 
philosophy1 yielded to it far  more     
slowly than the ,heathen1 but they did  
yield1 and especially after  they had   
conquered and expelled the ,heathen     
school4  ,moreover1 the long  battle    
with the ,heathen school had stirred up 
in them habits of  exclusiveness1 of    
denunciation2 the spirit which cannot   
assert a fact1  without dogmatising     
rashly and harshly on the consequences  
of denying  that fact4  ,their minds    
assumed a permanent habit of            
combativeness4  ,having no more         
,heathens to fight1 they began fighting 
each other1  excommunicating each other2
 denying to all who differed from them  
any  share of that light1 to claim which
 for all men had been the very ground   
of their philosophy4  ,not that they    
would have refused the ,logos to all    
men in words4  ,they would have cursed a

 man for denying the existence of  the  
,logos in every man2 but they would have
 equally cursed him for acting  on his  
existence in practice1 and treating the 
heretic as one who had  that within him 
to which a preacher might appeal4  ,thus
 they became  ,dogmatists2 that is1 men 
who assert a truth so fiercely1 as to   
forget  that a truth is meant to be     
used1 and not merely asserted--if1      
indeed1 the  fierce assertion of a truth
 in frail man is not generally a sign of
 some  secret doubt of it1 and in       
inverse proportion to his practical     
living  faith in it3 just as he who is  
always telling you that he is a man1 is 
not the most likely to behave like a    
man4  ,and why did this befall them8    
,because they forgot practically that   
the light proceeded from a ,person4     
,they could argue over notions and      
dogmas deduced from the notion of ,his  
personality3 but they were shut up in   
those notions2 they had forgotten  that 
if ,he was a ,person1 ,his eye was on   

them1 ,his rule and kingdom within      
them2 and that if ,he was a ,person1 ,he
 had a character1 and that that         
character was a righteous and a loving  
character3 and therefore they were  not 
ashamed1 in defending these notions and 
dogmas about ,him1 to commit  acts      
abhorrent to ,his character1 to lie1 to 
slander1 to intrigue1 to  hate1 even to 
murder1 for the sake of what they madly 
called ,his glory3  but which was really
 only their own glory--the glory of     
their own dogmas2  of propositions and  
conclusions in their own brain1 which1  
true or false1  were equally heretical  
in their mouths1 because they used them 
only as  watchwords of division4        
,orthodox or unorthodox1 they lost the  
knowledge  of ,god1 for they lost the   
knowledge of righteousness1 and love1   
and  peace4  ,that ,divine ,logos1 and  
theology as a whole1 receded further and
  further aloft into abysmal heights1 as
 it became a mere dreary system of  dead
 scientific terms1 having no practical  

bearing on their hearts and  lives2 and 
then they1 as the ,neoplatonists had    
done before them1 filled  up the void by
 those dmonologies1 images1 base ,fetish
 worships1 which  made the ,mohammedan  
invaders regard them1 and ,i believe    
justly1 as  polytheists and idolaters1  
base as the pagan ,arabs of the desert4 
,i cannot but believe them1 moreover1 to
 have been untrue to the teaching  of   
,clement and his school1 in that coarse 
and materialist admiration of  celibacy 
which ruined ,alexandrian society1 as   
their dogmatic ferocity  ruined         
,alexandrian thought4  ,the ,creed which
 taught them that in the  person of the 
,incarnate ,logos1 that which was most  
divine had been proved  to be most      
human1 that which was most human had    
been proved to be most  divine1 ought   
surely to have given to them1 as it has 
given to modern  ,europe1 nobler1       
clearer1 simpler views of the true      
relation of the sexes4  ,however1 on    
this matter they did not see their way4 

,perhaps1 in so  debased an age1 so     
profligate a world1 as that out of which
 ,christianity  had risen1 it was       
impossible to see the true beauty and   
sanctity of those  primary bonds of     
humanity4  ,and while the relation of   
the sexes was  looked on in a wrong     
light1 all other social relations were  
necessarily  also misconceived4  8,the  
very ideas of family and national life10
 as it  has been said1 8those two divine
 roots of the ,church1 severed from     
which  she is certain to wither away    
into that most cruel and most godless of
  spectres1 a religious world1 had      
perished in the ,east1 from the evil    
influence of the universal practice of  
slave-holding1 as well as from the      
degradation of that ,jewish nation which
 had been for ages the great  witness   
for these ideas2 and all classes1 like  
their forefather  ,adam--like1 indeed1  
the ,old ,adam--the selfish1 cowardly1  
brute nature in  every man and in every 
age--were shifting the blame of sin from

 their own  consciences to human        
relationships and duties1 and therein1  
to the ,god  who had appointed them2 and
 saying1 as of old1 #8,the woman whom   
,thou  gavest to be with me1 she gave me
 of the tree1 and ,i did eat4'0    ,much
 as ,christianity did1 even in ,egypt1  
for woman1 by asserting her  moral and  
spiritual equality with the man1 there  
seems to have been no  suspicion that   
she was the true complement of the man1 
not merely by  softening him1 but by    
strengthening him2 that true manhood can
 be no more  developed without the      
influence of the woman1 than true       
womanhood without  the influence of the 
man4  ,there is no trace among the      
,egyptian celibates  of that chivalrous 
woman-worship which our ,gothic         
forefathers brought  with them into the 
,west1 which shed a softening and       
ennobling light round  the medival      
convent life1 and warded off for        
centuries the worst effects  of         
monasticism4  ,among the religious of   

,egypt1 the monk regarded the nun1  the 
nun the monk1 with dread and aversion2  
while both looked on the  married       
population of the opposite sex with a   
coarse contempt and disgust  which is   
hardly credible1 did not the foul       
records of it stand written to  this    
day1 in ,rosweyde's extraordinary 8,vit 
,patrum ,eremiticorum20 no  barren      
school of metaphysic1 truly1 for those  
who are philosophic enough  to believe  
that all phenomena whatsoever of the    
human mind are worthy  matter for       
scientific induction4    ,and thus grew 
up in ,egypt a monastic world1 of such  
vastness that it was  said to equal in  
number the laity4  ,this produced1 no   
doubt1 an enormous  increase in the     
actual amount of moral evil4  ,but it   
produced three other  effects1 which    
were the ruin of ,alexandria4  ,first1 a
 continually growing  enervation and    
numerical decrease of the population2   
next1 a carelessness  of1 and contempt  
for social and political life2 and      

lastly1 a most  brutalising effect on   
the lay population2 who1 told that they 
were1 and  believing themselves to be1  
beings of a lower order1 and living by a
  lower standard1 sank down more and    
more generation after generation4  ,they
 were of the world1 and the ways of the 
world they must follow4  ,political life
 had no inherent sanctity or nobleness2 
why act holily and  nobly in it8        
,family life had no inherent sanctity or
 nobleness2 why act  holily and nobly in
 it either1 if there were no holy1      
noble1 and divine  principle or ground  
for it8  ,and thus grew up1 both in     
,egypt1 ,syria1 and  ,byzantium1 a chaos
 of profligacy and chicanery1 in rulers 
and people1 in  the home and the market1
 in the theatre and the senate1 such as 
the world  has rarely seen before or    
since2 a chaos which reached its        
culmination in  the seventh century1 the
 age of ,justinian and ,theodora1       
perhaps the two  most hideous           
sovereigns1 worshipped by the most      

hideous empire of  parasites and        
hypocrites1 cowards and wantons1 that   
ever insulted the  long-suffering of a  
righteous ,god4    ,but1 for ,alexandria
 at least1 the cup was now full4  ,in   
the year #fdj the  ,alexandrians were   
tearing each other in pieces about some 
,jacobite and  ,melchite controversy1 to
 me incomprehensible1 to you            
unimportant1 because  the fighters on   
both sides seem to have lost 7as all    
parties do in their  old age7 the       
knowledge of what they were fighting    
for1 and to have so  bewildered the     
question with personal intrigues1       
spites1 and quarrels1 as  to make it    
nearly as enigmatic as that famous      
contemporary war between  the blue and  
green factions at ,constantinople1 which
 began by backing in  the theatre1 the  
charioteers who drove in blue dresses1  
against those  wild drove in green2 then
 went on to identify themselves each    
with one of  the prevailing theological 
factions2 gradually developed1 the one  

into an  aristocratic1 the other into a 
democratic1 religious party2 and ended  
by  a civil war in the streets of       
,constantinople1 accompanied by the most
  horrible excesses1 which had nearly1  
at one time1 given up the city to  the  
flames1 and driven ,justinian from his  
throne4    ,in the midst of these       
,jacobite and ,melchite controversies   
and riots1  appeared before the city the
 armies of certain wild and unlettered  
,arab  tribes4  ,a short and fruitless  
struggle followed2 and1 strange to say1 
a  few months swept away from the face  
of the earth1 not only the wealth1  the 
commerce1 the castles1 and the liberty1 
but the philosophy and the              
,christianity of ,alexandria2 crushed to
 powder by one fearful blow1 all  that  
had been built up by ,alexander and the 
,ptolemies1 by ,clement and the         
philosophers1 and made void1 to all     
appearance1 nine hundred years of  human
 toil4  ,the people1 having no real hold
 on their hereditary ,creed1  accepted1 

by tens of thousands1 that of the       
,mussulman invaders4  ,the  ,christian  
remnant became tributaries2 and         
,alexandria dwindled1 from that  time   
forth1 into a petty seaport town4       
,and now--can we pass over this new     
metaphysical school of ,alexandria8 ,can
  we help inquiring in what the strength
 of ,islamism lay8  ,i1 at least1       
cannot4  ,i cannot help feeling that ,i 
am bound to examine in what  relation   
the creed of ,omar and ,amrou stands to 
the ,alexandrian  speculations of five  
hundred years1 and how it had power to  
sweep those  speculations utterly from  
the ,eastern mind4  ,it is a difficult  
problem2  to me1 as a ,christian priest1
 a very awful problem4  ,what more awful
  historic problem1 than to see the     
lower creed destroying the higher8 to   
see ,god1 as it were1 undoing his own   
work1 and repenting ,him that ,he had   
made man8  ,awful indeed3 but ,i can    
honestly say1 that it is one from the   
investigation of which ,i have          

learnt--,i cannot yet tell how much3 and
 of  this ,i am sure1 that without that 
old ,alexandrian philosophy1 ,i should  
not have been able to do justice to     
,islam2 without ,islam ,i should not    
have been able to find in that          
,alexandrian philosophy1 an ever-living 
and  practical element4    ,i must1     
however1 first entreat you to dismiss   
from your minds the vulgar  notion that 
,mohammed was in anywise a bad man1 or a
 conscious deceiver1  pretending to work
 miracles1 or to do things which he did 
not do4  ,he  sinned in one instance3   
but1 as far as ,i can see1 only in that 
one--,i mean  against what he must have 
known to be right4  ,i allude to his    
relaxing in  his own case those wise    
restrictions on polygamy which he had   
proclaimed4  ,and yet1 even in this     
case1 the desire for a child may have   
been the true  cause of his weakness4   
,he did not see the whole truth1 of     
course3 but he  was an infinitely better
 man than the men around3 perhaps1 all  

in all1  one of the best men of his day4
  ,many here may have read ,mr4         
,carlyle's  vindication of ,mohammed in 
his ,lectures on ,hero ,worship2 to     
those who  have not1 ,i shall only say1 
that ,i entreat them to do so2 and that 
,i  assure them1 that though ,i differ  
in many things utterly from ,mr4        
,carlyle's inferences and deductions in 
that lecture1 yet that ,i am  convinced1
 from my own acquaintance with the      
original facts and  documents1 that the 
picture there drawn of ,mohammed is a   
true and a just  description of a       
much-calumniated man4    ,now1 what was 
the strength of ,islam8  ,the common    
answer is1 fanaticism  and enthusiasm4  
,to such answers ,i can only rejoin3    
,such terms must be  defined before they
 are used1 and we must be told what     
fanaticism and  enthusiasm are4  ,till  
then ,i have no more  priori respect for
 a long  word ending in -ism or -asm    
than ,i have for one ending in -ation or
  -ality4  ,but while fanaticism and    

enthusiasm are being defined--a work    
more difficult than is commonly         
fancied--we will go on to consider      
another  answer4  ,we are told that the 
strength of ,islam lay in the hope of   
their  sensuous ,paradise and fear of   
their sensuous ,gehenna4  ,if so1 this  
is the  first and last time in the      
world's history that the strength of any
 large  body of people--perhaps of any  
single man--lay in such a hope4         
,history  gives us innumerable proofs   
that such merely selfish motives are the
  parents of slavish impotence1 of      
pedantry and conceit1 of pious frauds1  
often of the most devilish cruelty3 but1
 as far as my reading extends1 of       
nothing better4  ,moreover1 the         
,christian ,greeks had much the same    
hopes  on those points as the           
,mussulmans2 and similar causes should  
produce  similar effects3 but those     
hopes gave them no strength4  ,besides1 
according to the ,mussulmans' own       
account1 this was not their great       

inspiring idea2 and it is absurd to     
consider the wild battle-cries of a  few
 imaginative youths1 about black-eyed   
and green-kerchiefed ,houris  calling to
 them from the skies1 as representing   
the average feelings of a  generation of
 sober and self-restraining men1 who    
showed themselves  actuated by far      
higher motives4    ,another answer1 and 
one very popular now1 is that the       
,mussulmans were  strong1 because they  
believed what they said2 and the ,greeks
 weak1  because they did not believe    
what they said4  ,from this notion ,i   
shall  appeal to another doctrine of the
 very same men who put it forth1 and ask
  them1 ,can any man be strong by       
believing a lie8  ,have you not told us1
  nobly enough1 that every lie is by its
 nature rotten1 doomed to death1        
certain to prove its own impotence1 and 
be shattered to atoms the moment  you   
try to use it1 to bring it into rude    
actual contact with fact1 and  ,nature1 
and the eternal laws8  ,faith to be     

strong must be faith in  something which
 is not one's self2 faith in something  
eternal1 something  objective1 something
 true1 which would exist just as much   
though we and  all the world disbelieved
 it4  ,the strength of belief comes from
 that  which is believed in2 if you     
separate it from that1 it becomes a mere
  self-opinion1 a sensation of          
positiveness2 and what sort of strength 
that  will give1 history will tell us in
 the tragedies of the ,jews who opposed 
,titus1 of the rabble who followed      
,walter the ,penniless to the ,crusades1
  of the ,munster ,anabaptists1 and many
 another sad page of human folly4  ,it  
may give the fury of idiots2 not the    
deliberate might of valiant men4  ,let  
us pass this by1 then2 believing that   
faith can only give strength  where it  
is faith in something true and right3   
and go on to another  answer almost as  
popular as the last4    ,we are told    
that the might of ,islam lay in a       
certain innate force and  savage virtue 

of the ,arab character4  ,if we have    
discovered this in the  followers of    
,mohammed1 they certainly had not       
discovered it in  themselves4  ,they    
spoke of themselves1 rightly or wrongly1
 as men who had  received a divine      
light1 and that light a moral light1 to 
teach them to  love that which was good1
 and refuse that which was evil2 and to 
that  divine light they stedfastly and  
honestly attributed every right action  
of their lives4  ,most noble and        
affecting1 in my eyes1 is that answer of
  ,saad's aged envoy to ,yezdegird1 king
 of ,persia1 when he reproached him     
with the past savagery and poverty of   
the ,arabs4  8,whatsoever thou hast     
said10 answered the old man1 8regarding 
the former condition of the ,arabs  is  
true4  ,their food was green lizards2   
they buried their infant  daughters     
alive2 nay1 some of them feasted on dead
 carcases1 and drank  blood2 while      
others slew their kinsfolk1 and thought 
themselves great and  valiant1 when by  

so doing they became possessed of more  
property4  ,they  were clothed with hair
 garments1 they knew not good from evil1
 and made  no distinction between that  
which was lawful and unlawful4  ,such   
was our  state2 but ,god in his mercy   
has sent us1 by a holy prophet1 a sacred
  volume1 which teaches us the true     
faith40    ,these words1 ,i think1 show 
us the secret of ,islam4  ,they are a   
just  comment on that short and rugged  
chapter of the ,koran which is said to  
have been ,mohammed's first attempt     
either at prophecy or writing2 when1    
after long fasting and meditation among 
the desert hills1 under the  glorious   
eastern stars1 he came down and told his
 good ,kadijah that he  had found a     
great thing1 and that she must help him 
to write it down4  ,and what was this   
which seemed to the unlettered          
camel-driver so  priceless a treasure8  
,not merely that ,god was one ,god--vast
 as that  discovery was--but that he was
 a ,god 8who showeth to man the thing   

which  he knew not20 a 8most merciful   
,god20 a ,god1 in a word1 who could be  
trusted2 a ,god who would teach and     
strengthen2 a ,god1 as he said1 who     
would give him courage to set his face  
like a flint1 and would put an  answer  
in his mouth when his idolatrous        
countrymen cavilled and sneered  at his 
message to them1 to turn from their     
idols of wood and stone1 and  become    
righteous men1 as ,abraham their        
forefather was righteous4    8,a ,god   
who showeth to man the thing which he   
knew not40  ,that idea gave  might to   
,islam1 because it was a real idea1 an  
eternal fact2 the result  of a true     
insight into the character of ,god4     
,and that idea alone1  believe me1 will 
give conquering might either to creed1  
philosophy1 or  heart of man4  ,each    
will be strong1 each will endure1 in    
proportion as it  believes that ,god is 
one who shows to man the thing which he 
knew not3 as  it believes1 in short1 in 
that ,logos of which ,saint ,john wrote1

 that ,he  was the light who lightens   
every man who comes into the world4     
,in a word1 the wild ,koreish had       
discovered1 more or less clearly1 that  
end and object of all metaphysic whereof
 ,i have already spoken so often2  that 
external and imperishable beauty for    
which ,plato sought of old2 and  had    
seen that its name was righteousness1   
and that it dwelt absolutely in  an     
absolutely righteous person2 and        
moreover1 that this person was no       
careless self-contented epicurean deity2
 but that ,he was1 as they loved  to    
call ,him1 the most merciful ,god2 that 
,he cared for men2 that ,he  desired to 
make men righteous4  ,of that they could
 not doubt4  ,the fact  was palpable1   
historic1 present4  ,to them the        
degraded ,koreish of the  desert1 who as
 they believed1 and ,i think believed   
rightly1 had fallen  from the old       
,monotheism of their forefathers        
,abraham and ,ismael1 into the  lowest  
fetishism1 and with that into the lowest

 brutality and  wretchedness--to them1  
while they were making idols of wood and
 stone2  eating dead carcases2 and      
burying their daughters alive2 careless 
of  chastity1 of justice1 of property2  
sunk in unnatural crimes1 dead in       
trespasses and sins2 hateful and hating 
one another--a man1 one of their  own   
people had come1 saying3 8,i have a     
message from the one righteous  ,god4   
,his curse is on all this1 for it is    
unlike ,himself4  ,he will have  you    
righteous men1 after the pattern of your
 forefather ,abraham4  ,be  that1 and   
arise1 body1 soul1 and spirit1 out of   
your savagery and  brutishness4  ,then  
you shall be able to trample under font 
the profligate  idolaters1 to sweep the 
,greek tyrants from the land which they 
have been  oppressing for centuries1 and
 to recover the ,east for its rightful  
heirs1  the children of ,abraham40  ,was
 this not1 in every sense1 a message    
from  ,god8  ,i must deny the philosophy
 of ,clement and ,augustine1 ,i must    

deny my  own conscience1 my own reason1 
,i must outrage my own moral sense1 and 
confess that ,i have no immutable       
standard of right1 that ,i know no      
eternal source of right1 if ,i deny it  
to have been one2 if ,i deny what  seems
 to me the palpable historic fact1 that 
those wild ,koreish had in  them a      
reason and a conscience1 which could    
awaken to that message1 and  perceive   
its boundless beauty1 its boundless     
importance1 and that they  did accept   
that message1 and lived by it in        
proportion as they received  it fully1  
such lives as no men in those times1 and
 few in after times1  have been able to 
live4  ,if ,i feel1 as ,i do feel1 that 
,abubekr1 ,omar1 ,abu  ,obeidah1 and    
,amrou1 were better men than ,i am1 ,i  
must throw away all that  ,philo--all   
that a ,higher authority--has taught me3
 or ,i must attribute  their lofty      
virtues to the one source of all in man 
which is not  selfishness1 and fancy1   
and fury1 and blindness as of the beasts

 which  perish4    ,why1 then1 has      
,islamism become one of the most patent 
and complete  failures upon earth1 if   
the true test of a system's success be  
the  gradual progress and amelioration  
of the human beings who are under its   
influence8  ,first1 ,i believe1 from its
 allowing polygamy4  ,i do not judge    
,mohammed for having allowed it4  ,he   
found it one of the ancestral and       
immemorial customs of his nation4  ,he  
found it throughout the ,hebrew         
,scriptures4  ,he found it in the case  
of ,abraham1 his ideal man2 and1 as  he 
believed1 the divinely-inspired ancestor
 of his race4  ,it seemed to  him that  
what was right for ,abraham1 could not  
be wrong for an ,arab4  ,god  shall     
judge him1 not ,i4  ,moreover1 the      
,christians of the ,east1 divided  into 
either monks or profligates2 and with   
far lower and more brutal  notions of   
the married state than were to be found 
in ,arab poetry and  legend1 were the   
very last men on earth to make him feel 

the eternal and  divine beauty of that  
pure wedded love which ,christianity has
 not only  proclaimed1 but commanded1   
and thereby emancipated woman from her  
old  slavery to the stronger sex4  ,and 
,i believe1 from his chivalrous         
faithfulness to his good wife ,kadijah1 
as long as she lived1 that  ,mohammed   
was a man who could have accepted that  
great truth in all its  fulness1 had he 
but been taught it4  ,he certainly felt 
the evil of  polyamy so strongly as to  
restrict it in every possible way1      
except the  only right way--namely1 the 
proclamation of the true ideal of       
marriage4  ,but his ignorance1 mistake1 
sin1 if you will1 was a deflection from 
the  right law1 from the true           
constitution of man1 and therefore it   
avenged  itself4  ,that chivalrous      
respect for woman1 which was so strong  
in the  early ,mohammedans1 died out4   
,the women themselves--who1 in the first
 few  years of ,islamism1 rose as the   
men rose1 and became their helpmates1   

counsellors1 and                        
fellow-warriors--degenerated rapidly    
into mere  playthings4  ,i need not     
enter into the painful subject of       
woman's present  position in the ,east1 
and the social consequences thereof4    
,but ,i firmly  believe1 not merely as a
 theory1 but as a fact which may be     
proved by  abundant evidence1 that to   
polygamy alone is owing nine-tenths of  
the  present decay and old age of every 
,mussulman nation2 and that till it be  
utterly abolished1 all ,western         
civilisation and capital1 and all the   
civil and religious liberty on earth1   
will not avail one jot toward their     
revival4  ,you must regenerate the      
family before you can regenerate the    
nation1 and the relation of husband and 
wife before the family2 because1  as    
long as the root is corrupt1 the fruit  
will be corrupt also4    ,but there is  
another cause of the failure of         
,islamism1 more intimately  connected   
with those metaphysical questions which 

we have been hitherto  principally      
considering4    ,among the first        
,mussulmans1 as ,i have said1 there was 
generally the most  intense belief in   
each man that he was personally under a 
divine guide  and teacher4  ,but their  
creed contained nothing which could keep
 up that  belief in the minds of        
succeeding generations4  ,they had      
destroyed the  good with the evil1 and  
they paid the penalty of their          
undistinguishing  wrath4  ,in sweeping  
away the idolatries and fetish worships 
of the ,syrian  ,catholics1 the         
,mussulmans had swept away also that    
doctrine which alone  can deliver men   
from idolatry and fetish worships--if   
not outward and  material ones1 yet the 
still more subtle1 and therefore more   
dangerous  idolatries of the intellect4 
,for they had swept away the belief in  
the  ,logos2 in a divine teacher of     
every human soul1 who was1 in some      
mysterious way1 the pattern and antitype
 of human virtue and wisdom4  ,and      

more1 they had swept away that belief in
 the incarnation of the ,logos1  which  
alone can make man feel that his divine 
teacher is one who can  enter into the  
human duties1 sorrows1 doubts1 of each  
human spirit4  ,and1  therefore1 when   
,mohammed and his personal friends were 
dead1 the belief  in a present divine   
teacher1 on the whole1 died with them2  
and the  ,mussulmans began to put the   
,koran in the place of ,him of whom the 
,koran  spoke4  ,they began to worship  
the book--which after all is not a book1
 but  only an irregular collection of   
,mohammed's meditations1 and notes for  
sermons--with the most slavish and      
ridiculous idolatry4  ,they fell into a 
cabbalism1 and a superstitious reverence
 for the mere letters and words  of the 
,koran1 to which the cabbalism of the   
old ,rabbis was moderate and  rational4 
,they surrounded it1 and the history of 
,mohammed1 with all  ridiculous myths1  
and prodigies1 and lying wonders1       
whereof the book  itself contained not a

 word2 and which ,mohammed1 during his  
existence1  had denied and repudiated1  
saying that he worked no miracles1 and  
that  none were needed2 because only    
reason was required to show a man the   
hand  of a good ,god in all human       
affairs4  ,nevertheless1 these later    
,mussulmans  found the miracles         
necessary to confirm their faith3 and   
why8  ,because  they had lost the sense 
of a present ,god1 a ,god of order2 and 
therefore  hankered1 as men in such a   
mood always will1 after prodigious and  
unnatural proofs of ,his having been    
once present with their founder         
,mohammed4    ,and in the meanwhile that
 absolute and omnipotent ,being whom    
,mohammed1  arising out of his great    
darkness1 had so nobly preached to the  
,koreish1  receded in the minds of their
 descendants to an unapproachable and   
abysmal distance4  ,for they had lost   
the sense of ,his present guidance1     
,his personal care4  ,they had lost all 
which could connect ,him with the       

working of their own souls1 with their  
human duties and struggles1 with  the   
belief that ,his mercy and love were    
counterparts of human mercy and  human  
love2 in plain ,english1 that ,he was   
loving and merciful at all4  ,the change
 came very gradually1 thank ,god2 you   
may read of noble sayings  and deeds    
here and there1 for many centuries after
 ,mohammed3 but it came2  and then their
 belief in ,god's omnipotence and       
absoluteness dwindled into  the most    
dark1 and slavish1 and benumbing        
fatalism4  ,his unchangeableness  became
 in their minds not an unchangeable     
purpose to teach1 forgive1 and  deliver 
men--as it seemed to ,mohammed to have  
been--but a mere brute  necessity1 an   
unchangeable purpose to have ,his own   
way1 whatsoever that  way might be4     
,that dark fatalism1 also1 has helped   
toward the decay of  the ,mohammedan    
nations4  ,it has made them careless of 
self-improvement2  faithless of the     
possibility of progress2 and has kept1  

and will keep1  the ,mohammedan nations1
 in all intellectual matters1 whole ages
 behind  the ,christian nations of the  
,west4    ,how far the story of ,omar's 
commanding the baths of ,alexandria to  
be  heated with the books from the great
 library is true1 we shall never  know4 
,some have doubted the story altogether3
 but so many fresh  corroborations of it
 are said to have been lately           
discovered1 in ,arabic  writers1 that ,i
 can hardly doubt that it had some      
foundation in fact4  ,one cannot but    
believe that ,john ,philoponus1 the last
 of the ,alexandrian  grammarians1 when 
he asked his patron ,amrou the gift of  
the library1 took  care to save some1 at
 least1 of its treasures2 and howsoever 
strongly  ,omar may have felt or said   
that all books which agreed with the    
,koran  were useless1 and all which     
disagreed with it only fit to be        
destroyed1  the general feeling of the  
,mohammedan leaders was very different4 
,as  they settled in the various        

countries which they conquered1         
education  seems to have been considered
 by them an important object4  ,we even 
find  some of them1 in the same         
generation as ,mohammed1 obeying        
strictly the  ,prophet's command to send
 all captive children to school--a fact 
which  speaks as well for the           
,mussulmans' good sense1 as it speaks   
ill for the  state of education among   
the degraded descendants of the ,greek  
conquerors  of the ,east4  ,gradually   
philosophic ,schools arose1 first at    
,bagdad1 and  then at ,cordova2 and the 
,arabs carried on the task of commenting
 on  ,aristotle's ,logic1 and ,ptolemy's
 ,megiste ,syntaxis--which last acquired
  from them the name of ,almagest1 by   
which it was so long known during the   
,middle ,ages4    ,but they did little  
but comment1 though there was no        
,neoplatonic or  mystic element in their
 commentaries4  ,it seems as if         
,alexandria was  preordained1 by its    
very central position1 to be the city of

  commentators1 not of originators4  ,it
 is worthy of remark1 that  ,philoponus1
 who may be considered as the man who   
first introduced the  simple warriors of
 the ,koreish to the treasures of ,greek
 thought1 seems  to have been the first 
rebel against the ,neoplatonist         
eclecticism4  ,he  maintained1 and      
truly1 that ,porphyry1 ,proclus1 and the
 rest1 had entirely  misunderstood      
,aristotle1 when they attempted to      
reconcile him with ,plato1  or          
incorporate his philosophy into         
,platonism4  ,aristotle was henceforth  
the text-book of ,arab savants4  ,it was
 natural enough4  ,the ,mussulman  mind 
was trained in habits of absolute       
obedience to the authority of  fixed    
dogmas4  ,all those attempts to follow  
out metaphysic to its highest  object1  
theology1 would be useless if not wrong 
in the eyes of a  ,mussulman1 who had   
already his simple and sharply-defined  
creed on all  matters relating to the   
unseen world4  ,with him metaphysic was 

a study  altogether divorced from man's 
higher life and aspirations4  ,so also  
were  physics4  ,what need had he of    
,cosmogonies8 what need to trace the    
relations between man and the universe1 
or the universe and its ,maker8  ,he had
 his definite material ,elysium and     
,tartarus1 as the only ultimate         
relation between man and the universe2  
his dogma of an absolute fiat1  creating
 arbitrary and once for all1 as the only
 relation between the  universe and its 
,maker3 and further it was not lawful to
 speculate4  ,the  idea which ,i believe
 unites both physic and metaphysic with 
man's highest  inspirations and widest  
speculations--the ,alexandria idea of   
the ,logos1 of  the ,deity working in   
time and space by successive            
thoughts--he had not  heard of2 for it  
was dead1 as ,i have said1 in           
,alexandria itself2 and if  he had heard
 of it1 he would have spurned it as     
detracting from the  absoluteness of    
that abysmal one ,being1 of whom he so  

nobly yet so  partially bore witness4   
,so it was to be2 doubtless it was right
 that it  should be so4  ,man's eye is  
too narrow to see a whole truth1 his    
brain  too weak to carry a whole truth4 
,better for him1 and better for the     
world1 is perhaps the method on which   
man has been educated in every age1  by 
which to each school1 or party1 or      
nation1 is given some one great  truth1 
which they are to work out to its       
highest development1 to  exemplify in   
actual life1 leaving some happier       
age--perhaps1 alas6 only  some future   
state--to reconcile that too favoured   
dogma with other truths  which lie      
beside it1 and without which it is      
always incomplete1 and  sometimes       
altogether barren4    ,but such schools 
of science1 founded on such a ground as 
this1 on the  mere instinct of          
curiosity1 had little chance of         
originality or vitality4  ,all the great
 schools of the world1 the elder ,greek 
philosophy1 the  ,alexandrian1 the      

present ,baconian school of physics1    
have had a deeper  motive for their     
search1 a far higher object which they  
hope to discover4  ,but indeed1 the     
,mussulmans did not so much wish to     
discover truth1 as to  cultivate their  
own intellects4  ,for that purpose a    
sharp and subtle  systematist1 like     
,aristotle1 was the very man whom they  
required2 and  from the destruction of  
,alexandria may date the rise of the    
,aristotelian  philosophy4              
,translations of his works were made    
into ,arabic1 first1 it  is said1 from  
,persian and ,syriac translations2 the  
former of which had  been made during   
the sixth and seventh centuries1 by the 
wreck of the  ,neoplatonist party1      
during their visit to the philosophic   
,chozroos4  ,a  century after1 they     
filled ,alexandria4  ,after them        
,almansoor1 ,hairoun  ,alraschid1 and   
their successors1 who patronised the    
,nestorian ,christians1  obtained from  
them translations of the philosophic1   

medical1 and  astronomical ,greek works2
 while the last of the ,omniades1       
,abdalrahman1  had introduced the same  
literary taste into ,spain1 where1 in   
the  thirteenth century1 ,averros and   
,maimonides rivalled the fame of        
,avicenna1 who had flourished at ,bagdad
 a century before4    ,but1 as ,i have  
said already1 these ,arabs seem to have 
invented nothing2  they only commented4 
,and yet not only commented2 for they   
preserved for  us those works of whose  
real value they were so little aware4   
,averros1  in quality of commentator on 
,aristotle1 became his rival in the     
minds of  the medival schoolmen2        
,avicenna1 in quality of commentator on 
,hippocrates and ,galen1 was for        
centuries the text-book of all ,european
  physicians2 while ,albatani and ,aboul
 ,wefa1 as astronomers1 commented on    
,ptolemy1 not however without making a  
few important additions to his          
knowledge2 for ,aboul ,wefa discovered a
 third inequality of the moon's  motion1

 in addition to the two mentioned by    
,ptolemy1 which he did1  according to   
,professor ,whewell1 in a truly         
philosophic manner--an  apparently      
solitary instance1 and one which1 in its
 own day1 had no  effect2 for the fact  
was forgotten1 and rediscovered         
centuries after by  ,tycho ,brahe4  ,to 
,albatani1 however1 we owe two really   
valuable heirlooms4  ,the one is the use
 of the sine1 or half-chord of the      
double arc1 instead  of the chord of the
 arc itself1 which had been employed by 
the ,greek  astronomers2 the other1 of  
even more practical benefit1 was the    
introduction of the present decimal     
arithmetic1 instead of the  troublesome 
sexagesimal arithmetic of the ,greeks4  
,these ten digits1  however1 seem1 says 
,professor ,whewell1 by the confession  
of the ,arabians  themselves1 to be of  
,indian origin1 and thus form no        
exception to the  sterility of the      
,arabian genius in scientific           
inventions4  ,nevertheless  we are      

bound1 in all fairness1 to set against  
his condemnation of the  ,arabs         
,professor ,de ,morgan's opinion of the 
,moslem1 in his article on  ,euclid3    
8,some writers speak slightingly of this
 progress1 the results of  which they   
are too apt to compare with those of our
 own time4  ,they ought  rather to place
 the ,saracens by the side of their own 
,gothic ancestors2  and making some     
allowance for the more advantageous     
circumstances under  which the first    
started1 they should view the second    
systematically  dispersing the remains  
of ,greek civilisation1 while the first 
were  concentrating the geometry of     
,alexandria1 the arithmetic and algebra 
of  ,india1 and the astronomy of both1  
to form a nucleus for the present state 
of science40    ,to this article of     
,professor ,de ,morgan's on ,euclid1    
#abg and to  ,professor ,whewell's      
excellent 8,history of the ,inductive   
,sciences10 from  which ,i1 being       
neither ,arabic scholar nor astronomer1 

have drawn most of  my facts about      
physical science1 ,i must refer those   
who wish to know more  of the early rise
 of physics1 and of their preservation  
by the ,arabs1  till a great and        
unexpected event brought them back again
 to the quarter  of the globe where they
 had their birth1 and where alone they  
could be  regenerated into a new and    
practical life4    ,that great event was
 the ,crusades4  ,we have heard little  
of ,alexandria  lately4  ,its           
intellectual glory had departed westward
 and eastward1 to  ,cordova and to      
,bagdad2 its commercial greatness had   
left it for ,cairo and  ,damietta4  ,but
 ,egypt was still the centre of         
communication between the  two great    
stations of the ,moslem power1 and      
indeed1 as ,mr4 ,lane has shown  in his 
most valuable translation of the        
8,arabian ,nights10 possessed a         
peculiar life and character of its own4 
,it was the rash object of the          
,crusaders to extinguish that life4     

,palestine was their first point of     
attack3 but the later ,crusaders seem   
to have found1 like the rest of the     
world1 that the destinies of  ,palestine
 could not be separated from those of   
,egypt2 and to ,damietta1  accordingly1 
was directed that last disastrous       
attempt of ,st4 ,louis1  which all may  
read so graphically described in the    
pages of ,joinville4    ,the ,crusaders 
failed utterly of the object at which   
they aimed4  ,they  succeeded in an     
object of which they never dreamed2 for 
in those ,crusades  the ,moslem and the 
,christian had met face to face1 and    
found that both  were men1 that they had
 a common humanity1 a common eternal    
standard of  nobleness and virtue4  ,so 
the ,christian knights went home humbler
 and  wiser men1 when they found in the 
,saracen emirs the same generosity1     
truth1 mercy1 chivalrous self-sacrifice1
 which they had fancied their own       
peculiar possession1 and added to that1 
a civilisation and a learning  which    

they could only admire and imitate4     
,and thus1 from the era of the          
,crusades1 a kindlier feeling sprang up 
between the ,crescent and the  ,cross1  
till it was again broken by the fearful 
invasions of the ,turks  throughout     
,eastern ,europe4  ,the learning of the 
,moslem1 as well as their  commerce1    
began to pour rapidly into ,christendom1
 both from ,spain1 ,egypt1  and ,syria2 
and thus the ,crusaders were1 indeed1   
rewarded according to  their deeds4     
,they had fancied that they were bound  
to vindicate the  possession of the     
earth for ,him to whom they believed the
 earth belonged4  ,he showed them--or   
rather ,he has shown us1 their          
children--that ,he can  vindicate ,his  
own dominion better far than man can do 
it for ,him2 and  their cruel and unjust
 aim was utterly foiled4  ,that was not 
the way to  make men know or obey ,him4 
,they took the sword1 and perished by   
the  sword4  ,but the truly noble       
element in them--the element which our  

hearts  and reasons recognise and love1 
in spite of all the loud words about the
  folly and fanaticism of the ,crusades1
 whensoever we read 8,the ,talisman0  or
 8,ivanhoe0--the element of loyal faith 
and self-sacrifice--did not go          
unrequited4  ,they learnt wider1 juster 
views of man and virtue1 which ,i       
cannot help believing must have had     
great effect in weakening in their      
minds their old1 exclusive1 and bigoted 
notions1 and in paving the way  for the 
great outburst of free thought1 and the 
great assertion of the  dignity of      
humanity1 which the fifteenth century   
beheld4  ,they opened a  path for that  
influx of scientific knowledge which has
 produced1 in after  centuries1 the most
 enormous effects on the welfare of     
,europe1 and made  life possible for    
millions who would otherwise have been  
pent within the  narrow bounds of       
,europe1 to devour each other in the    
struggle for room  and bread4    ,but   
those ,arabic translations of ,greek    

authors were a fatal gift for  ,egypt1  
and scarcely less fatal gift for        
,bagdad4  ,in that ,almagest of         
,ptolemy1 in that ,organon of           
,aristotle1 which the ,crusaders are    
said to  have brought home1 lay1 rude   
and embryotic1 the germs of that        
physical  science1 that geographical    
knowledge which has opened to the       
,european the  commerce and the         
colonisation of the globe4  ,within     
three hundred years  after his works    
reached ,europe1 ,ptolemy had taught the
 ,portuguese to sail  round ,africa2 and
 from that day the stream of eastern    
wealth flowed no  longer through the    
,red ,sea1 or the ,persian ,gulf1 on its
 way to the new  countries of the ,west2
 and not only ,alexandria1 but ,damietta
 and ,bagdad1  dwindled down to their   
present insignificance4  ,and yet the   
whirligig of  time brings about its     
revenges4  ,the stream of commerce is   
now rapidly  turning back to its old    
channel2 and ,british science bids fair 

to make  ,alexandria once more the inn  
of all the nations4    ,it is with a    
feeling of awe that one looks upon the  
huge possibilities of  her future4  ,her
 own physical capacities1 as the great  
mind of ,napoleon  saw1 are what they   
always have been1 inexhaustible2 and    
science has  learnt to set at naught the
 only defect of situation which has ever
  injured her prosperity1 namely1 the   
short land passage from the ,nile to    
the ,red ,sea4  ,the fate of ,palestine 
is now more than ever bound up with  her
 fate2 and a ,british or ,french colony 
might1 holding the two  countries1      
develop itself into a nation as vast as 
sprang from  ,alexander's handful of    
,macedonians1 and become the meeting    
point for the  nations of the ,west and 
those great ,anglo-,saxon peoples who   
seem destined  to spring up in the      
,australian ocean4  ,wide as the dream  
may appear1  steam has made it a far    
narrower one than the old actual fact1  
that for  centuries the ,phoenician and 

the ,arabian interchanged at ,alexandria
 the  produce of ,britain for that of   
,ceylon and ,hindostan4  ,and as for    
intellectual development1 though        
,alexandria wants1 as she has always    
wanted1 that insular and exclusive      
position which seems almost necessary   
to develop original thought and original
 national life1 yet she may still  act  
as the point of fusion for distinct     
schools and polities1 and the  young and
 buoyant vigour of the new-born nations 
may at once teach1 and  learn from1 the 
prudence1 the experience1 the           
traditional wisdom of the  ancient      
,europeans4    ,this vision1 however    
possible1 may be a far-off one3 but the 
first step  towards it1 at least1 is    
being laid before our eyes--and that is1
 a fresh  reconciliation between the    
,crescent and the ,cross4  ,apart from  
all  political considerations1 which    
would be out of place here1 ,i hail1 as 
a  student of philosophy1 the school    
which is now1 both in ,alexandria and in

  ,constantinople1 teaching to ,moslem  
and to ,christians the same lesson      
which the ,crusaders learnt in ,egypt   
five hundred years ago4  ,a few years'  
more perseverance in the valiant and    
righteous course which ,britain has  now
 chosen1 will reward itself by opening a
 vast field for capital and  enterprise1
 for the introduction of civil and      
religious liberty among the             
down-trodden peasantry of ,egypt2 as the
 ,giaour becomes an object of  respect1 
and trust1 and gratitude to the ,moslem2
 and as the feeling that  ,moslem and   
,giaour own a common humanity1 a common 
eternal standard of  justice and mercy1 
a common sacred obligation to perform   
our promises1  and to succour the       
oppressed1 shall have taken place of the
 old brute  wonder at our careless      
audacity1 and awkward assertion of      
power1 which  now expresses itself in   
the somewhat left-handed ,alexandrian   
compliment--8,there is one ,satan1 and  
there are many ,satans3 but there is  no

 ,satan like a ,frank in a round hat40  
99 99 99 99 99    ,it would be both     
uncourteous and unfair of me to close   
these my hasty  ,lectures1 without      
expressing my hearty thanks for the     
great courtesy and  kindness which ,i   
have received in this my first visit to 
your most noble  and beautiful city2 and
 often1 ,i am proud to say1 from those  
who differ  from me deeply on many      
important points2 and also for the      
attention with  which ,i have been      
listened to while trying1 clumsily      
enough1 to explain  dry and repulsive   
subjects1 and to express opinions which 
may be new1 and  perhaps startling1 to  
many of my hearers4  ,if my imperfect   
hints shall  have stirred up but one    
hearer to investigate this obscure and  
yet most  important subject1 and to     
examine for himself the original        
documents1 ,i  shall feel that my words 
in this place have not been spoken in   
vain2 for  even if such a seeker should 
arrive at conclusions different from my 

own  7and ,i pretend to no              
infallibility71 he will at least have   
learnt new  facts1 the parents of new   
thought1 perhaps of new action2 he will 
have  come face to face with new human  
beings1 in whom he will have been       
compelled to take a human interest2 and 
will surely rise from his  researches1  
let them lead him where they will1 at   
least somewhat of a  wider-minded and a 
wider-hearted man4          ,,footnotes4
      #c  ,these ,lectures were         
delivered at the ,philosophical         
,institution1  ,edinburgh1 in ,february1
 #ahed1 at the commencement of the      
,crimean ,war4    #abg  ,smith's        
8,classical ,dictionary40