But even if language is the oldest chronicle in which the human mind has traced its own development, we must by no means imagine that any known language, be it as old as the pyramids, or as the cuneiform inscriptions, can offer us a picture of the first beginning of the mental life of the race. Long before the pyramids, long before the oldest monuments in Babylon, Nineveh, and China, there was language, even writing; for on the oldest Egyptian inscriptions we find among the hieroglyphic signs writing materials and the stilus. Here perspectives open up to us, before which every chronological telescope gives way. There is a rigorous continuity in the development of a language, but this continuity in no wise excludes a transformation as marked as that of the butterfly from the caterpillar. Even when, as for instance in Sanskrit, we go back to a number of roots, to which Indian grammarians such as Panini have systematically traced back the entire wealth of their abundant language, we must not suppose that these roots really constituted the original and complete material with which the primitive Aryan tongue began its historical career. This is not true even of the Indian branch of this primitive tongue, for in its development much may have been lost, and much so changed that we dare not think of restoring a perfect picture from these fragments of the earliest mental development of the Indians. These things are so simple that philologists accept them as axioms; but it is curious to observe, that in spite of the widespread interest that has been created in all civilised nations by the results of the science of language, philosophers who write about language and its relation to thought still trouble themselves over notions long since antiquated. I had, for instance, classified the principal ideas expressed in Sanskrit roots, and had reduced them to the small number of 121.(46) With these 121 ideas, Indian philology pledges itself to explain all the simple and derivative meanings of words that fill the thick volumes of a Sanskrit lexicon. And what did ethnologists say to this? Instead of gratefully accepting this fact, they asserted that many of these 121 radical ideas, as for instance, weaving or cooking, could not possibly be primitive. Impossible is always a very convenient word. But who ever claimed that these 121 fundamental ideas all belonged to the primitive Aryan language. They are, in fact, the ideas that are indicated in the thousands of words in classical Sanskrit, but they have never made any claim to have constituted the mental capital of the primitive Aryans, whether acquired from heaven or from the domicile of apes. And if now a few of these ideas, such as to weave, to cook, to clean, appear modern, what of that compared with the simple fact that they are actually there?

These ethnologists, too, always make the old mistake of confounding the learning of a language, as is done by every child, with the first invention or formation of a language. The two things are as radically different as the labour of miners who bring forth to the light of day gold ore out of the depths of the earth, and the enjoyment which the heirs of a rich man have in squandering his cash. The two things are quite different, and yet there are books upon books which attempt to draw conclusions as to the creation of language from children learning to talk. We have at least now got so far as to admit that language facilitates thinking; but that language first made thought possible, that it was the first step in the development of the human mind, but few anthropologists have seen.(47) They do not know what language in the true sense of the word means, and still think that it is only communication, and that it does not differ from the signals made by chamois, or the information imparted by the antennae of ants. Henry Drummond goes so far as to say that "Any means by which information is conveyed from one mind to another, is language."(48) That is entirely erroneous. The entire chapter on sign language, interesting as it is, must be treated quite differently by the philologist, compared with the ethnologist. When the sign is such as was used in the old method of telegraphing, and meant a real word, or, as in modern electric telegraphy, even a letter, this is really speaking by signs; and so is the finger language of the deaf and dumb. But when I threaten my opponent with my fist, or strike him in the face, when I laugh, cry, sob, sigh, I certainly do not speak, although I do make a communication, the meaning of which cannot be doubted. Not every communication, therefore, is language, nor does every act of speaking aim at a communication. There are philologists who maintain that the first words were merely a clearing of the ideas, a sort of talking to oneself. This may have been so or not, at any rate it appears to me that in such primitive times, practical ends deserve the first consideration. No one can distinguish the difference in the stages of mental development, between wiping the perspiration from the brow after work, which signifies and communicates to every observer, "It is warm" or "I am tired," and the man who can actually say, "It is warm," "I am tired." Thousands, millions of years may lie between these two steps. We do not know, and to attempt to fix periods of time where the means are lacking, is like pouring water into the Danaids' sieves.

Just consider what effort was required to enable an Aryan man to say, "It is warm." We shall say nothing of "it"; it may be a simple demonstrative stem, which needed little for its formation. But before this "i-t" or "id" could become an impersonal "it," long-continued abstraction, or, if you prefer, long-continued polishing, was required. Take the word is. Whence comes such a verbal form, Sanskrit as-ti, Greek ἔστι, Latin est? Was the abstract "to be" onomatopoetically imitated? Often, of course, we cannot answer such questions at all. In this case, however, it is possible. The root as in asti, that we now translate as is, means as we see from as-u, breath, originally to breathe. Whoever likes may see in as, to breathe, an imitation of hissing breath. We neither gain or lose anything by this; for the critical step always remains to be taken from a single imitation of a single act, to the comprehension of many such acts, at various places, and at various times, as one and the same, which is called abstraction or the forming of a concept.

This may appear to be a very small step, just as the first slight deviation in a railroad track is scarcely a finger's breadth, but in time changes the course of the train to an entirely different part of the world. The formation of an idea, such as to be, or to become, or to take a still simpler one, such as four or eight, appears to us to be a very small matter, and yet it is this very small matter that distinguishes man from the animal, that pushed man forward and left the animal behind on his old track. Nay, more, this "concept" has caused much shaking of the head among philosophers of all times. That one and one are two, two and two, four, four and four, eight, eight and eight, sixteen, etc., appears to be so very easy, that we do not understand how such things can constitute an eternally intended distinction between man and animal. I have myself seen an ape so well trained that as the word "seven" was spoken, he picked up seven straws. But what is such child's play in comparison with the first formation of the idea of seven? Do you not see that the formation of such an abstract idea, isolating mere quantity apart from all qualities, requires a power of abstraction such as has never been displayed by an animal? If there were any languages now that actually had no word for seven, it would be a valuable confirmation of this view. I doubt only, whether the speakers of such languages could not call composition to their aid, and attain the idea of seven by two, two, two, plus one. We still know too little of these languages and of those who speak them. Of what takes place in animals we know absolutely nothing, and nowhere would a dose of agnosticism be more useful than here. Sense-impressions an animal certainly has; whether quite the same as man must remain uncertain. And sense-impressions enable an animal to accomplish much, especially in the realm of feeling; but language—never.

This fact, as a bare undeniable fact, should have startled the Darwinians, even as it startled the venerable Darwin, when I simply set the facts before him, and he immediately drew the necessary consequences. Of any danger there could be no fear. The facts are there and show us the right path. And it is not only simple facts, but the consequences of preexisting conditions which render every so-called transition from animal to man absolutely unthinkable. Language—as ethnologists should have learned—has neither originated from artificial signs, nor from imitation of sounds. That we can communicate with signs without saying a word, that we even now use signs in our speech, is best learned in southern races, and in such pantomimes as L'enfant prodigue. We have long known that imitations of sound exist in greater or lesser numbers in every language, and how far they can reach has probably never been shown in such detail as by myself.(49) But that our Aryan tongues, and also the Semitic, and all others that have been studied scientifically, originated from roots, is now generally known and recognised. That these roots may in remote times have contained an element of imitation, we may readily concede, for it is really self-evident; only we should not from the beginning bar our way by conceiving them as mere imitations of sound. If this were so, the problem of language would long since have been solved, and the first formation of ideas would require no further reflection. It must be conceded on the other side that the origin of roots still contains much that is obscure, and that even Noire's clamor concomitans does not explain every case. Only it is firmly established that a scientific analysis of language leaves a certain number of roots which are not mere sound-imitations, such as "bow wow," or "moo moo." There are people who have taken much pains to discover whether the roots ever had an independent existence, or if they have merely been scientifically abstracted, or shelled out of the words in which they occur. These are vain questions, for we can never of course come at the matter historically, and the attempt to prove the necessity of the one or the other view is a useless undertaking. It appears to be the most reasonable plan to assume for the Aryan languages a period that approaches the Chinese, in which roots had the same sound and the same form as the corresponding noun, adjective, and verb. Even in Sanskrit roots appear at times still unchanged, although it is quite right that as soon as they take on grammatical functions, they should no longer be called roots. Much may be said in favour of both views, without arriving one step nearer our goal. If we now only remember that the whole Sanskrit language has been reduced to 121 primitive ideas, and that the roots denoting these (which are of course much more numerous) are not imitations of sound in the strict sense of the word, but sounds about whose origin we may say much but can prove little, we have at least a που στῶ for our researches. I myself, like my deceased friend Noire, have looked upon roots as clamor concomitans, that is, not as sound-imitations, but as actual sounds, uttered by men in common occupations, and to be heard even now. Why, however, the Aryans used and retained ad for eat, tan for stretch, mar for rub, as for breathe, sta for stand, ga for go, no human thought can find out; we must be content with the fact that it was so, and that a certain number of such roots—of course much greater than the 121 ideas expressed by them—constitute the kernels from which has sprouted the entire flora of the Indian mind.

If we now return, to our is,—Sanskrit as-ti, Greek ἔστι, Latin est,—we see that it originally meant "to breathe out." This blowing or breathing was then used for "life," as in as-u, breath of life, and from life it lost its content until it could be applied to everything existing, and meant nothing more than the abstract "to be." There are languages that possess no such pale word as "be" and could not form such a sentence as "It is warm." The auxiliary verb "to have" is also lacking in many languages, especially the ancient, such as Sanskrit, Greek, and even classical Latin. If the words failed, the ideas failed as well, and such languages had to try and fulfil their requirements in other ways. If there was no such word as "be," "stand" was employed; where there was no word for "have," then "hold," tenere, would render the same, or at least similar service. But this implied not only different speech, but different thought.

But here I should like to call attention to the long process through which a language must pass, before it could reduce "breathe" to "be" and form such a sentence as "It is warm." Even an animal feels warmth, and can in various ways make known if it is overheated. But in all this it is only a question of feelings, not to ideas, and still less of language. Let us consider "warm." Of course "warm" may represent a mere feeling, and then a simple panting would suffice to express it. That is communication, but not language. To think a word like warm, a root and an idea are necessary. Probably, and in spite of a few phonetic difficulties, the root was in this case ghar (in gharma, θερμός), and this meant at first to be bright, to glitter, to shine, then to burn, to heat, to be warm; that is to say, the observing mind of man was able to abstract brightness from the sense-impressions produced by sun, fire, gold, and many other objects, and, letting everything else drop, to reach the idea of shining, then of being warm. These ideas, of course, do not exist on their own account anywhere in the world; they must be and have been constructed by man alone, never by an animal. Why? Because an animal does not possess what man possesses: the faculty of grasping the many as one, so as to form an idea and a word. Light or lighting, warmth or warming, exist nowhere in the world, and are nowhere given in sentient experience. Every object of sense exists individually, and is perceived as such individually, such as the sun, a torch, a stove; but heat in general, like everything general, is the product of our thought; its name is made by us, and is not given us.

Of all this, of course, when we learn to speak as children, we have no suspicion. We learn the language made by others who came before us, and proceed from words to ideas, not from ideas to words. Whether the relation between ideas and words was a succession, it is hard to say, because no idea exists without a word, any more than a word without an idea. Word and idea exist through each other, beside each other, with each other; they are inseparable. We could as easily try to speak without thinking, as to think without speaking. It is at first difficult to grasp this. We are so accustomed to think silently, before speaking aloud, that we actually believe that the same is true, even of the first formation of ideas and words. Our so-called thinking before speaking, however, refers simply to reflection, or deliberation. It is something quite different, and occurs only with the aid of silent words that are in us, even if they are not uttered. Every person, particularly in his youth, believes that he cherishes within himself inexpressible feelings, or even thoughts. These are chiefly obscure feelings, and the expression of feelings has always been the most difficult task to be performed by language, because they must first pass through a phase of conception. If, however, they are actually ideas, they are such as have an old expression that is felt to be inconvenient, or inadequate, and must be replaced by a new one. We cannot do enough to rid ourselves of the old error, that thought is possible without words. We can, of course, repeat words without meaning; but that is not speaking, only making a noise. If any one, however, tells us that he can think quite well without words, let this silent thinker be suddenly interrupted, ask him of what he has thought in silence, and he will have to admit that it was of a dog, a horse, or a man—in short, of something that has a name. He need not utter these words—that has never been maintained, but he must have the ideas and their signs, otherwise there are not, and there cannot be for him, either ideas or things. How often we see children move their lips while they are thinking, that is, speaking without articulation. We can, of course, in case of necessity, use other signs; we can hold a dog on high and show him, but if we ask what is shown, we shall find that the actual dog is only a substitute for the abstract word "dog," not the reverse, for a dog that is neither a spaniel, poodle, dachshund, etc., is nowhere to be found, in rerum natura, or in domestic life. These things, that give us so much trouble, were often quite clear to the ancient Hindus, for their usual word for "thing" is padartha; that is, meaning or purpose of the word. But men persist that they are able to think without speaking aloud, or in silence. They persist that thought comes first, and then speech; they persist that they can speak without thinking,—and that is often quite true,—and that they can also think without speaking, which must first be proved. Consider only what is necessary to form so simple a word as "white." The idea of white must be formed at the same time, and this can only be done by dropping everything but the colour from the sense-perceptions of such things as snow, snowdrop, cloud, chalk, or sugar, then marking this colour, and, by means of a sign (in this case a vocal one), elevating it to a comprehensible idea, and at the same time to a word. How this vocal token originates it is often difficult, often quite impossible, to say. The simplest mode is, for example, if there be a word for snow, to take this and to generalise it, and then to call sugar, for instance, snow, or snowy, or snow-white. But the prior question, how snow was named, only recedes for a while, and must of course be answered for itself. Given a word for snow, it can easily be generalised. But how did we name snow? I believe that snow, which forms into balls in melting and coheres, was named nix nivis, from a root snigh or snu, denoting everything which melted and yet stuck together or cohered. But these are mere possibilities that may be true or false; yet their truth or falsity leave undisturbed the fundamental truth, that each individual perception, as, for example, this snow or this ice, first had to be brought under a general conception, before it could be clearly marked, or elevated to a word. In such a case men formed, by living and working together, a general conception and a root, for an oft-repeated action, such as forming into balls; and under this general concept they then conceived an individual impression like snow; that is, that which is formed into a ball, so that they had the sign, and with the sign the concept of snow, both inseparable in reality, distinguishable as they are in their origin. Having this, they could extend the concept in the vocal sign for snow, and speak of snowy things, just as they spoke of rosy cheeks. Only we must not imagine that it will ever be possible to make the origin of root sounds perfectly clear. This goes back to times that are entirely withdrawn from our observation. It goes back to times in which the first general ideas were formed, and thereby the first steps were taken in the development of the human mind. How is it possible that any recollection should have remained of such early times, or even any understanding of these mental processes? We may settle many things, but in the end nothing is left but to say: It is so, and remains so, whether we can explain it or not. The first general concept may no doubt have been, as Noire affirmed, an often repeated action, such as striking, going, rubbing, chewing—acts that spontaneously present themselves to consciousness, as manifold and yet single, that is, as continually repeated, in which the mind consequently found the first natural stimulus to the formation of concepts. Why, however, rub was denoted by mar, eat by ad, go by ga, strike by tud, we may perhaps apprehend by feeling, but we could not account for or even conceive it. Here we must be content with the facts, especially as in other families of languages we find entirely different vocal signs. No doubt there was a reason for all of them; but this reason, even if we could prove it historically, would always remain incomprehensible to us, and only as fact would it have any significance for science.

At any rate, we can now understand in what manner language offers us really historical documents of the oldest stages which we can reach in the development of the human mind. I say, "which we can reach," for what lies beyond language does not exist for us. Nothing remains of the history of homo alalus. But every word represents a deed, an acquisition of the mind. If we take such a word as the Vedic deva, there may have been many older words for god, but let us not imagine that a fetish or totem, whose etymology is or should be known, belongs to them. But at all events we know from deva and the Latin deus, that even before the Aryan separation a root dyu or div had been formed, as well as the conception "shine." If this root was first used actively for the act of shedding light, of striking a spark, of shining, it was a step farther to transfer this originally active root to the image which the sky produces in us, and to call it a "shiner," dyu (nom. dyaus), and then with a new upward tendency to call all bright and shining beings, deva, deus. Man started, therefore, from a generalisation, or an idea, and then under this idea grouped other single presentations, such as sun, moon, and stars, from which "shining" had been withdrawn, or abstracted, and thus obtained as a mental acquisition a sign for the idea "shine," and further formations such as Dyaus (shiner) and deva (shining). Now observe how Dyaus, as "shiner," at the same time assumed the significance of an otherwise unknown agent or author of light, and developed into the ancient Dyaus, into Zeus and Jove; that is, into the oldest personal God of the still united Aryans. These are the true stages of the development of the human mind, which are susceptible of documentary proof in the archives of language.

All this occurred, of course, on exclusively Aryan ground, while the Semitic and other branches went their own way in the formation of ideas, and of sounds for their ideas. Physiologically all these branches may have one and the same origin, but linguistically they have various beginnings, and have not, at least as far as scientific proof is possible, sprung from one and the same source. The common origin of all languages is not impossible, but it is and remains undemonstrable, and to science that is enough, sapienti sat. If we analyse the Semitic and other languages, we shall find in them as many ancient documents of the development of the human mind as in the Aryan. And just as we can clearly and plainly trace back the French dieu, the Latin deus, the Sanskrit deva, divine, to the physical idea div, "shine," so we can with thousands of other words, of which each indicates an act of will, and each gives us an insight into the development of our mind. Whether the Aryans were in possession of other ideas and sounds for "shine," etc., before the formation of div, Dyaus, and deva, must be left uncertain; at all events we see how naturally the first consciousness of God developed in them, how the idea conditioned the language, and the language the idea, and both originated and continued inseparable one from the other.

If we take any root of the Aryan language, we shall be astonished at the enormous number of its derivatives and the shades in their meaning. Here we see very plainly how thought has climbed forward upon words. We find, for instance, in the list of Sanskrit roots, the root bhar with the simple meaning to bear. This we see plainly in bharami, in bibharmi, in bibharti (I bear, he bears), also in bharas or bhartar (a bearer), and bharas (load) and bharman and bharti (bearing), etc.

But these forms, with all their cases and persons and tenses, give us no idea of the fruitfulness of a root, especially if we follow its ramifications in the cognate languages. In Greek we have φέρω, in Latin fero, in Gothic bairan, in English to bear. The principal meanings which this root assumes are, to carry, carry hither, carry away, carry in, to support, to maintain, to bring forth, etc. We find simple derivatives such as the German Bahre, English bier (French biere, borrowed), and also φέρετρον and feretrum, as well as ferculum (a litter). On the other hand there is φόρετρον (a porter's wages), and φaρέτρa (quiver). And barrow in wheel-barrow has the same origin. Burden is that which is borne, then a load, as, for instance, the burden of years. A step farther takes us to φερτός (bearable) and ἄφερτος (unbearable). We also find in Greek δύσφορος, which corresponds exactly to the Sanskrit durbhara, with the meaning "heavy to bear." In Latin, however, fertus signifies fruitful, like fertilis, ferax. We say, "The earth bears" (traegt), and Getreide (grain) meant originally that borne (getragen) by the earth (hence in Middle High German Getraegede). So we have also far, the oldest corn grown by the Romans, derived from fero, and along with it farina (flour), if it stands for farrina. Far may originally, however, have also meant food, maintenance, and the Anglo-Saxon bere, the English barley, are again related to it. Of course we have the same root in derivatives, such as lucifer, frugifer, in Greek καρποφόρος or φερέκαρπος. In German it becomes a mere suffix, as fruchtbar, dankbar, scheinbar, urbar. Like φόρος, φορά means also what is carried or brought, hence specially tribute, duty, tax. To bear a child was used in the sense of to bring forth, and from this we have many derivatives such as birth, born, and Gothic berusjos (parents), parentes and barn (the child), like the Greek φέρμα.

If δίφρος (carriage) stands for διφόρος, it means originally a carriage for two persons, just as ἀμφορεύς, Latin amphora, was a vessel with two handles. We should scarcely believe that the same root is concealed in the German Zuber (tub) and Eimer (bucket). But Zuber was originally Zwiber, a vessel with two handles, and Eimer was Einber, a bucket with one bail. We may compare manubrium (handle) and derivatives like candelebrum, lugubris, as well as luctifer. If bhartri meant bearer and then husband, as bharyã meant wife, i.e. the one to be maintained, we are probably justified in seeing in bhratar (brother) the original meaning of helper, protector. Although the wife is to be maintained and sustained, she, too, brings something to the household, and that is the φέρνω (dowry). The Middle Latin expression paraphernalia is properly dowry, though it has now assumed an entirely different meaning. "To be carried" easily takes the meaning of being torn away, s'emporter, and this we find in the Greek represented by φέρεσθαι, in the Sanskrit in the secondary form bhur (to hasten), yielding bhuranyu, bhurni (hasty, violent), and other derivatives.

We have already seen how φόρος and φορά signified that which is contributed, then duty, tribute. This is the Gothic gabaur, that is, gebuehr (due), and consequently all things that are proper or becoming.

Offerre (bring before) leads to Opfer (sacrifice) and to the simpler offrir, as sufferre to souffrir (suffer).

It has been usual to derive Fors, Fortuna, from ferre,(50) the goddess who brings, although she takes away as well. The ancients had no doubts of this derivation, and τὸ φέρον (fate) and τὸ φερόμενον (chance) seem to substantiate it. But the old divine character of Fors, Fortuna (as related to Harit), points to other sources, which had already entirely vanished from the consciousness of the ancients. Yet the expression, es traegt sich zu (it happens), the old gaburjan, Anglo-Saxon gebyrian, and kipuri (zufaellig, casual), must be taken into account, and forms such as forte, forsan, fortassis (forte an si vis), fortuitus, are very remote from their supposed mythological meaning. If ferre were the root, we should have further proof of the immeasurable fertility to which we owe such words as fortune and misfortune.

It would lead us too far if we tried to collect all the meanings which our roots had in the various ancient Aryan tongues in combination with prepositions. It must suffice to select a small number from a modern language such as French, which give us an idea of the endless modifications to which every root is more or less adapted. Thus from circumferre we have circonference, also peripherie, from conferre, conference and also confortable, from deferre deference, from differre difference, from praeferre preference, from proferre proferer, from referre reference, each word again with numerous offshoots. We are not at the end yet, and still less when we keep in view also the parallel formations tuli and latum, or portare. We then see what a root in this language has to signify, whether considered as a concrete word or as a mere abstraction. This is prolific of contention and has been much disputed; the main thing is to know the facts. From these we may infer how in all this multiplicity the unity of the root element can be best explained.

I do not say that all ideas can be so clearly traced to their origin as in this root. In some the intermediate forms have been lost, and the etymologies become uncertain, often impossible. But the result on the whole remains the same. Wherever we can see clearly, we see that what we call mind and thought consists in this, that man has the power not only to receive presentations like an animal, but to discover something general in them. This element he can eliminate and fix by means of vocal signs; and he can further classify single presentations under the same general concepts, and mark them by the same vocal signs. What we call derivative forms, such as deva besides div, are originally varieties in the formation of words, that in time proved useful, and through repeated employment obtained their special application. Often, too, there are real compounds, just as the German bar in fruchtbar, furchtbar, etc., was originally the same word that we have in Bahre (bier), but was very different from bar in Nachbar (neighbour), which in spite of the similarity in sound comes from an entirely different root, seen in bauen (build), bebauen (cultivate), bauer (peasant), and in the English neighbour.

If we have the ideas and the words, the process of thought, as Hobbes has taught us, is nothing but an addition and subtraction of ideas. We add when we say, A is B; when we say, for instance, man, or Caius, is mortal, adding Caius, or man, to all that we call mortal; we subtract when we say, A is not B; that is, when we abstract Enoch from all that we call mortal. Everything that man has ever thought, humiliating as it may sound, consists in these two operations; just as the most abstruse operations of mathematics go back in the end to addition and subtraction. To what else could they go back? Whether these mental operations are true or false, is another question, with which the method of the thinker has nothing to do; any more than formal logic inquires whether all men are mortal, but only infers on the basis of these premises that Caius, because he is a man, is also mortal.

We see, therefore, how language and thought go hand in hand; where there is as yet no word, there is not yet an idea. The thinking capacity of the mind has its source in language, lives in language, and develops continuously in language. The human mind is human language, and as animals possess no language, they do not ipso facto possess what philosophers understand by mind. We need not for this reason ascribe any special faculty to men. Speech and thought are only a wider development of the faculty of presentation such as an animal may have; but in an animal it never develops any farther, for an animal has no general ideas; it remains at the individual, and never attains unity in plurality. It knows, as Plato would say, a horse, but not "horsedom." If we wish to say that the perceiving self is present in animals as in men, there is no objection, though in all such, questions relating to animals we are always groping in the dark. But the fact remains that the step, whether small or vast, that leads from the individual to the general, from the concrete to the abstract, from perceiving (that is, being acted upon) to conceiving, thinking, speaking, that is, to acting, is for the animal impossible. An animal might speak, but it cannot; a stone might grow, but it cannot; a tree might walk, but it cannot. Why not? Because there are natural boundaries that are apparently easy to pass, and yet impassable. The tree grows up a tree, the animal an animal, but no farther, just as man never surpasses the human, and therefore can never think except through language, which often is very imperfect.

In one sense, therefore, the Horseherd is quite right. The mind is a development, an eternal, ceaseless development; but when he calls it a function possessed by all living organisms, even a goose and a chicken, he goes far beyond the facts. No goose speaks, although it cackles, and although by cackling it apprised the Romans of the important fact that their Capitol was in danger. How much a dog could tell us if he could speak! As if this capacity or incapacity is not as much the result of intention as every other capacity and incapacity in nature! If we translate this ability by facultas, that is facilitas, we need not for that reason assume in man a faculty, or as the Horseherd calls it, a phantom, but the thing remains the same. We can speak, and an animal cannot; we can think, and an animal cannot.

But it must not be supposed that because we deny thought and speech to animals, we wish to degrade them. Everything that has been told us of the ingenious tricks of animals, even the most incredible, we shall gladly believe, only not that bos locutus est, or that an actual utterance lies hidden in the bark of a dog. A man who sees no difference between language and communication will of course continue to say that a dog speaks, and explain in how many dialects he barks, when he is hungry, when he wants to go out with his master, when he hears burglars in the house, or when he has been whipped and whines. It would be more natural if scientists confined themselves to facts, without asking for reasons, and primarily to the great fact that no animal, with the exception of man, speaks, or ever has spoken. The next duty of the observer is to ask: Why is this? There is no physical impossibility. A parrot can imitate all words. There must therefore be a non-physical cause why there has never been a parrot or dog language. Is that true or false? And if we now call that non-physical cause mind, or still better the Logos, namely, the gatherer of the many into the one, comprehending, conceiving, is our argument so erroneous if we seek the distinction between man and animal in the Logos, in speech and thought, or in mind? This mind is no ghost, as the Horseherd asserts, nor is it a mere phantom of the brain as is imagined by so many scientists. It is something real, for we see its effects. It is born, like everything that belongs to our ego, of the self-conscious Self, which alone really and eternally exists and abides.

So far I hope to have answered the second objection of the Horseherd or Horseherds, that the mind is a function possessed also by a goose or a chicken. Mind is language, and language is mind, the one the sine qua non of the other, and so far no goose has yet spoken, but only cackled.



CHAPTER V.

The Reasonableness Of Religion

The most difficult and at all events the thorniest problem that was presented to me by the Horseherd still remains unanswered, and I have long doubted whether I should attempt to answer it in so popular a periodical as the Deutsche Rundschau.

There are so many things that have been so long settled among scholars that they are scarcely mentioned, while to a great majority of even well-informed people they are still enveloped in a misty gloom. To this class belong especially the so-called articles of faith. We must not forget that with many, even with most men, faith is not faith, but acquired habit. Why otherwise should the son of a Jew be a Jew, the son of a Parsi a Parsi? Moreover, no one likes to be disturbed in his old habits. There are questions, too, on which mankind as it is now constituted will never reach a common understanding, because they lie outside the realm of science or the knowable. Concerning such questions it is well to waste no more words. But it is on just such a question, namely, the true nature of revelation, that the Horseherd and his companions particularly wish to know my views. The current theory of revelation is their greatest stumbling block, and they continually direct their principal attack against this ancient stronghold. On the other hand there is nothing so convenient as this theory, and many who have no other support cling fast to this anchor. The Bible is divine revelation, say they, therefore it is infallible and unassailable, and that settles everything.

Now we must, above all things, come to an understanding as to what is meant by revelation before we attribute revelation to the Bible. There are not many now who really believe that an angel in bodily form descended from heaven and whispered into the ear of the apostles, in rather bad Greek, every verse, every word, even every letter of our Gospels. When Peter in his second Epistle (i. 18) assures us that he heard a voice from heaven, that is a fact that can only be confirmed, or invalidated, by witnesses. But when he immediately after says (i. 21) that "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit," he presents to us a view of inspiration that is easily intelligible, the possibility or truth of which must yet be first determined by psychologists. If it be conceded, however, that holy men may partake of such an inspiration, even then it is plain that it requires a much higher inspiration to declare others to be divinely inspired than to make such a claim for oneself alone. This theory, that the Gospels are inspired by God, and therefore are infallible and unassailable, has gained more and more currency since the time of the Reformation. The Bible was to be the only authority in future for the Christian faith. Pope and ecclesiastical tradition were cast aside, and a greater stress was consequently laid on the litera scripta of the New Testament. This naturally led to a very laborious and detailed criticism of these records, which year by year assumed a wider scope, and was finally absorbed in so many special investigations that its original purpose of establishing the authority of the Scriptures of the New Testament seems to have quite passed out of sight. These critical investigations concerning the manuscripts of the New Testament, Codex Sinaiticus, Alexandrimus, and Vaticanus, down to Number 269, Bentley's Q, are probably of less interest to the Horseherd; they are known to those who make a special study of this subject, and are of no interest outside.

If, as might have happened, without any miracle, the original autograph of the Gospels, as they were written by the apostles or some one else with their own hands, had been carefully preserved in the archives of the first popes, our professors would have been spared much labour. But we nowhere read that these successors and heirs of Peter showed any special solicitude for this prime duty of their office, the preservation of this precious jewel of their treasure, the New Testament. What they neglected, had therefore to be recovered by our philologists. Just as those who wished to study the Peloponnesian war resorted to the manuscripts of Thucydides, the Christian scholars, to become acquainted with the origins of Christianity, betook themselves to the manuscripts of the New Testament. And as the manuscripts of Thucydides vary widely from one another and in certain passages leave us quite helpless, so do the manuscripts of the New Testament. Bentley speaks of thirty thousand variae lectiones in the New Testament; but since his time their number must have increased fourfold. The manuscripts of the New Testament are more numerous than those of any classic. Two thousand are known and have been described, and more yet may lie buried in libraries. Now while this large number of manuscripts and various readings have given the philologists of the New Testament greater difficulties than the classical philologist encounters, still on the other hand the New Testament has the advantage over all classical texts, in that some of its manuscripts are much older than those of the majority of classical writers. We have, for instance, no complete manuscripts of Homer earlier than the thirteenth century, while the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament descend from the fourth and fifth centuries. It is frequently said that all these things are of no importance for the understanding of the New Testament, and that theologians need not trouble themselves about them. But this is saying too much. There are variae lectiones, which are certainly not without importance for the facts and the doctrines of Christianity, and in which the last word belongs not to the theologian, but to the philologist. No one would say that it makes no difference if Mark xvi. 9-20 is omitted or not; no one would declare that the authenticity or spuriousness of the section on the adulteress (John vii. 53-viii. 11) was entirely indifferent. When we consider what contention there has been over the seventh verse of the fifth chapter of the first Epistle of John, and how the entire doctrine of the Trinity has been based on that ("For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one"), it will hardly be maintained that the manuscripts are of no importance for Christian dogma. Whether in the first Epistle to Timothy iii. 16, we read ΟΣ for ΘΣ, that is, θεός, is also not quite immaterial. Still I admit that in comparison to the problems presented to me by the Horseherd and his comrades, these variae lectiones will not rack our brains nearly so badly. I have been reproached for still owing my friends an answer to the attacks which they directed exclusively against Christian religion. It was, however, impossible to deal thoroughly with these matters, without first taking into consideration their objections against all religion.

I therefore first endeavoured to make clear to my unknown friends two things, which constitute the foundation of all religion: first, that the world is rational, that it is the result of thought, and that in this sense only is it the creation of a being which possesses reason, or is reason itself (the Logos); and secondly, that mind or thought cannot be the outcome of matter, but on the contrary is the prius of all things. To this end a statement of the results of the philosophy of language was absolutely necessary, partly to establish more clearly the relation of thought to speech, partly to comprehend the true meaning of the Logos or the Word in the New Testament, and understand in how easily intelligible and perfectly reasonable a sense the term "Word" (Logos) can be applied to the Son of God.

I am not one of those who pretend to find no difficulties in all these questions. On the contrary, I have wrestled with them for years, and remember well the joy I felt when first the true historical meaning of the opening of the Fourth Gospel, "In the beginning was the word," became clear to me. It is true that I turned no somersaults like the Horseherd, but I was well satisfied. I do not therefore consider the objections raised by him as unfounded or without justification; on the contrary, it were better if others would speak with the same freedom as he has done, although a calmer tone in such matters would be more effective than the fortissimo of the Horseherd.

What aided me most in the solution of these religious or theological difficulties, was a comparative study of the religions of mankind. In spite of their differences, they are all afflicted with the same ailments, and when we find that we encounter the same difficulties in other religions as those with which we are ourselves contending, it is safe to consider them as deeply rooted in human nature, and in this same nature, be it weak or strong, to seek their solution. As comparative philology has proved that many of the irregular nouns and verbs are really the most regular and ancient, so it is with the irregular, that is, the miraculous occurrences in the history of religion. Indeed, we may now say that it would be a miracle if there were anywhere any religion without miracles, or if the Scriptures on which any religion is based were not presented by the priests and accepted by the believers as of superhuman, even divine origin, and therefore infallible. In all these matters we must seek for the reasons, and in this manner endeavour to understand their truth as well as error.

Whether or not I have succeeded in proving that the world is rational, and that mind is the prius of matter, I must leave to the decision of the Horseherd and his friends. Fortunately these questions are of that nature that we may entertain different opinions upon them without accusing each other of heresy. Many Darwinians, for instance, Romanes, and even Huxley, have always considered themselves good Christians, although they believed the doctrine of Darwin to be the only way of salvation. If, however, we take up such questions as were propounded to me by the Horseherd, and which have more to do with Christian theology than Christian religion, there is an immediate change of tone, and unfortunately the difference of view becomes at once a difference of aim. The moral element enters immediately, and those who believe otherwise are designated unbelievers, though we do not at once stamp those who think otherwise as incapable of thought. Here lies the great difficulty in considering and treating calmly religious, or rather, theological questions. There is little hope of reaching a mutual understanding when the first attack is characterised by such vigour as was shown by the Horseherd and many of his comrades. He speaks at once of tales of fraud and deceit, and of the fantasies of the Christian religion. He says that he is full of bloodthirstiness against the Jewish idea of God, and believes that since the writings of Hume and Schopenhauer, positive Christianity has become a sheer impossibility, and more of the same import. This is certainly "fortissimo," but not therefore by any means "verissimo."

Other correspondents, such as Agnosticus, declare all revelation a chimera; in short, there has been no lack of expressions subversive of Christianity, and, in fact, of all revealed religion.

At this point a glance at the development of the religion of the Hindus may be of great service to us. Nowhere is the idea of revelation worked out so carefully as in their literature. They have a voluminous literature, treating of religion and philosophy, and they draw a very sharp distinction between revealed and unrevealed works (Sruti and Smriti). Here much depends upon the name. Revealed meant originally nothing more than plain and clear, and when we speak of a revelation, in ordinary life, this is not much more than a communication. But erelong "reveal" was used in the special sense of a communication from a superhuman to a human being. The question of the possibility of such a communication raised little difficulty. But this possibility depends naturally on the prior conception of superhuman beings and of their relationship to human beings. So long as it was imagined that they occasionally assumed human form, and could mingle in very human affairs, a communication from a Not-man, I will not say a monster, presents no great difficulties. The Greeks went so far as to ascribe to men of earlier times a closer intercourse with the gods. But even with them the idea that man should not enter too closely into the presence of the gods breaks forth here and there, and Semele, who wished to be embraced by Zeus in all his glory, found her destruction in this ecstasy. As soon as the Deity was conceived in less human fashion, as in the Old Testament, intercourse between God and man became more and more difficult. In Genesis this intercourse is still represented very simply and familiarly, as when God walks about in the Garden of Eden, and Adam and Eve are ashamed of their nakedness before Him. Soon, however, a higher conception of God enters, so that Moses, for example (Exodus xxxiii. 23), may not see the face of Jehovah, but still ventures at least to look upon His back. The writer of the Fourth Gospel goes still farther and declares (i. 18), "No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared Him." Here we clearly see that the possibility of intercourse between man and God, and a revelation of God to man, depends chiefly or exclusively on the conception which man has previously formed of God and man. In all theological researches we must carefully bear in mind that the idea of God is our idea, which we have formed in part through tradition, and in part by our own thinking; and we must not forget that existence formed an essential attribute of this idea, whatever opposition may have been raised against the ontological proof in later times. After what we have seen of the true relationship between thought and speech, it follows that the name, and with it the idea of a divine being, can only proceed from man. God is and remains our God. We can have a knowledge of Him only through our inner consciousness, not through our senses. God Himself has no more imparted His name to mankind than the fixed stars and planets to which we have given names, although we only see, but do not hear or touch them. This must be absolutely clear to us before we dare speak of the possibility or impossibility of a revelation.

Now it is very useful, before we treat of our own idea of a revelation emanating from God, to look round among other nations and see how they reached the idea of a revelation. We see in India that a number of hymns in an ancient dialect and in fixed metres were preserved by oral tradition—the method was wonderful, but is authenticated by history—before there could have been a thought of reducing them to writing. These hymns contain very little that would appear to be too high or too deep for an ordinary human poet. They are of great interest to us because they make known, as clearly as possible, the sound of the oldest Aryan language, and the nature of the oldest Aryan gods. As Professor Deussen, in his valuable History of Philosophy says, (I, 83), the Vedic religion, which he at the same time calls the oldest philosophy, is richer in disclosures than any other in the world. In this sense he very properly calls the study of the Rigveda the high school of the science of religion, so that as he says no one can discuss these matters without a knowledge of it. This unique distinction rests, as he truly remarks, on the fact, "That the process on which originally all gods depend, the personification of the phenomena of nature, while it is more or less obscured by all other religions, in the Rigveda still takes place, so to speak, before our eyes visibly and palpably." I have long preached this in vain. All who have studied the Rigveda say this, and all who have not studied it say just the contrary, and lay especial stress upon the fact that these hymns contain ideas that once and for all they declare as modern. But no one has ever contended that this is not so. What is historically the oldest, may from a higher point of view be quite modern, and there are scholars who even look upon Adam as a reformer of mankind. Those who best know the Rigveda have often shown that it stands at a tolerably advanced stage, and here and there casts a distant glance into its own past. I myself have often said that I would give much if I could escape from my own proofs of the age of this collection of hymns, and could clearly show that at least some of these Vedic hymns had been added later.

These hymns, therefore, just because, judging from their language and metre, they are older than everything else in India, or even in the entire Aryan world, and because they are mainly concerned with the ancient gods of nature, appeared to the Hindus themselves as apaurusheya, that is, not wrought by man. They were called Sruti, (that which was heard), in distinction from other literature, which was designated as Smriti, or recollection.

All this is easily intelligible. There followed a period, however, during which the true understanding of the hymns became considerably obscured, and a new series of works, the so-called Brahmanas, arose. These were very different from the hymns. They are composed in a younger language and in prose. They treat of the sacrifice, so full of significance in India, at which the hymns were employed, and which seems to me to have been originally designed for measuring time, and thus served to mark the progress of civilisation. They explain the meaning of the hymns, often quite erroneously; but they contain some interesting information upon the condition of India, long after the period when the hymns first appeared, and yet before the rise of Buddhism in the sixth century before Christ. It has been supposed that, as the Brahmanas were composed in prose, they were originally written, according to the hypothesis of Wolf, that prose everywhere presupposes the knowledge of writing. I cannot admit this in the case of India; at any rate, there is no trace of any acquaintance with writing in the whole of this extensive mass of literature. It was throughout a mnemonic literature, and just because the art of writing was unknown, the memory was cultivated in a manner of which we have no idea. At all events, the Brahmans themselves knew nothing of the Brahmanas in written form, and included them with the hymns under the names Veda and Sruti; that is, they regarded them, in our phraseology, as revealed, and not the work of men.

The remarkable thing, however, is that they did not assume, like the Romans in the case of Numa and Egeria, a communication from the Vedic gods of nature to ordinary men, but contented themselves with declaring that the Veda had been seen by the Rishis, whose name Rishi they explained etymologically as "seer."

It is clear, therefore, that what the Brahmans understood under Sruti was nothing more than literature composed in an ancient language (for the Brahmanas are also composed in an ancient language, though not as ancient as that of the hymns), and treating of matters on which apparently man alone can establish no authority. For how could ordinary man take on himself to speak about the gods or to give directions for the sacrifice, to make promises for the reward of pious works, or even to decide what is morally right or wrong? More than human authority was necessary for this, and so the Brahmanas, as well as the hymns, were declared to be apaurusheya, that is, not human, though by no means divine, in the sense of having been imparted by one of the Devas.

We see, therefore, that the idea of the Sruti, while approaching to our idea of revelation as apaurusheya, that is, not human, does not quite coincide with it. What was ancient and incomprehensible, was called superhuman, and soon became infallible and beyond assault. If we look at other religions, we find that Buddhism denied the Veda every authority, and in conformity with its own character especially excluded every idea of superhuman revelation. In China, too, we look in vain for revelation. In Palestine, however, we find the idea that the Lord Himself spoke with Moses, who delivered His commands to Israel, and the tables of the commandments were even written by God's own fingers on both sides. But this must not be confounded with written literature. The idea that the entire Old Testament was written or revealed by Jehovah is absolutely not of ancient Jewish origin, whatever respect may have been shown to the holy books as recognised in the Synagogue.

As for Islam, the Koran is looked upon as communicated to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel, even as Zoroaster in the Avesta claims to have received certain communications in conversation with Ahuramazda.

In Christianity, in whose history the theory of revelation has played so great a part, there is in fact—and this is frequently overlooked—no declaration on the subject by Christ or the apostles themselves. That the Gospels, as they have come down to us, have been revealed, is nowhere stated in them, nor can it be gathered from the Acts of the Apostles or the Epistles. No one has ever maintained that any New Testament Scripture was known to Christ or even to the apostles.(51) On the contrary, if we take the titles of the Gospels in their natural meaning, they do not purport to have been written down by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John themselves: they are simply the sacred history as it was recorded by others according to each of these men. Attempts have indeed been made to reason away the meaning of κατά, "according to," and interpret it as "by," but it is more natural to take it in its ordinary sense. When Paul, in his second Epistle to Timothy (iii. 16), says, "Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching," this is the usual mode of expression applied to the Scriptures of the Old, not of the New Testament (John v. 39), and would merely signify inspired, breathed in, not revealed in each word and letter.

In any case we learn this much from a comparative study of religions, that the majority of them have their holy books, which are usually the oldest remains of literature, oral or written, that they possess. They look upon the authors of these Scriptures as extraordinary, even superhuman beings; and the later theologians in order to remove from the minds of the people every doubt as to their truth, devised the most ingenious theories, to show how these books were not produced by men, but were merely seen by them, and how in the end even the words and letters of the original text were dictated to certain individuals. It is imagined, therefore, that the Deity condescended to speak Hebrew or Greek in the dialect of that period, and that therefore no letter or accent may be disturbed.

This would, of course, make the matter very easy, and this is no doubt the reason why the theory has found so many adherents. It is only strange that no founder of any religion ever appears to have felt the necessity of leaving anything in his own writing either to his contemporaries or to posterity. No one has ever attempted to prove that Moses wrote books, nor has it ever been said of Christ that he composed a book (John vii. 15). The same is true of Buddha, in spite of the legend of the alphabets; and of Mohammed we know from himself that he could neither read nor write. What we possess, therefore, in the way of holy Scriptures is always the product of a later generation, and subject to all the hazards involved in oral tradition. This was not to be avoided, and ought not to surprise us. If we attempt ourselves to write down without the aid of books or memoranda, occurrences or conversations of which we were witnesses fifty years ago, we shall see how difficult it is, and how untrustworthy is our memory. We may be entirely veracious, but it by no means follows that we are also true and trustworthy. Let any one try to describe the incidents of the Austro-Prussian War without referring to books, and he will see how, with the best intentions, names and dates will waver and reel. When did the German National Assembly elect the German Emperor? Who were the members of the regency? Who was Henry Simon, and were there one or more Simons, like the nine Simons in the New Testament? Who can answer these questions now without newspapers, and yet these are matters only fifty years old, and at the time were well known to all of us. Was it different with the Christians in the year 50 A.D.? It was therefore very natural that a certain inspiration or preeminent endowment should be demanded for the authors of the Gospels; if some do so still, it is on their own responsibility, just as if we demanded for the mother of Mary the same immaculate birth as for Mary herself, et sic ad infinitum. These are for the most part merely excuses for human unbelief. Nothing proves the veracity of the authors of the Gospels so clearly as the natural, often derogatory words which they use of themselves, or even more of the apostles. These did not understand, as they say, the simplest parables or teachings; they were jealous of one another; Peter even denied the Lord; in short, the authors of the Gospels cannot be credited with sinlessness and infallibility, supposing that they were really the apostles.

If they were not, then all these difficulties of our own making disappear. We then find in the Gospels just what we might expect: no ingeniously prepared statements without inconsistencies and without contradictions, but simple, natural accounts, such as were current from the first to the third generations in certain circles or localities, and even according to the attachment of certain families to the personal narrations of one or another of the apostles. We must not forget that in the first generation the necessity for a record was not even felt. Children were still brought up as Jews, for Christianity did not seek to destroy, only to fulfil; and as all the Scriptures, that is the Old Testament, were derived from God and were good for instruction, they continued in use for teaching without further question. But in the second and third generations the breach between Jews and Christians became wider and wider, and the number of those who had known Christ and the apostles, less and less; the need of books especially for the instruction of children consequently became more urgent, and the four Gospels thus arose by a natural process in answer to a natural and even irresistible want. The difficulties involved even in the smallest contradiction between the Gospels on a theory of inspiration thus disappear of themselves; nay, their discrepancies become welcome, because they entirely exclude every idea of intentional deviation, and simply exhibit what the historical conditions would lead us to expect. Of what harm is it, for instance, that Matthew (viii. 28), in relating the expulsion of the devils in the land of the Gergesenes, speaks of two possessed men, while Mark (v. 2) knows only of one among the Gadarenes? Mark also speaks only of unclean spirits, while Matthew speaks of devils. Mark and Luke know the name of the sufferer, Legion; Matthew does not mention the Roman name. These are matters of small import in human traditions and records; in divine revelations they would be difficult to explain.

But it becomes still more difficult when we come to expressions which are really significant and essential for Christianity, for even in these we find inconsistencies. What can be more important than the passage in which Christ asks his disciples, "But whom say ye that I am," and Peter answers, "Thou art the Messiah" (Mark viii. 29). That was a purely Jewish-Christian answer, and Jesus accepts it as the perfect truth, which, however, should still remain secret. In (Matthew xvi. 16) Peter says not only, "Thou art the Messiah," but adds, "Son of the living God." This makes a great difference, and the remarkable thing is, that later on Jesus only commands his disciples to keep secret that he, Jesus, was the Messiah, and says nothing of himself as the Son of God. So much has been written about other discrepancies in this passage, particularly of the promise of the building of the church upon this rock (Peter), which is only found in (Matthew xvi. 18), that we have nothing further to say about it, unless it be that in Mark in this very passage Jesus rebukes Peter because he thinks more of the world than of God, like so many of his later successors.

Let us bear in mind further that neither revelation nor divine inspiration was really necessary for recording most of the things related in the Gospels. The less, the better; for either the witnesses knew that Pilate was at the time governor in Palestine, that Caiaphas was high priest, and that Jairus was ruler of a synagogue, or they did not know it, and in that case we cannot assume that these things were revealed to them by God without irreverence. If, however, it is impossible that God should have inspired or sanctioned the historical part of the Gospels, why then the other part, which contains the teachings of Christ? Is it not much better, much more honest and trustworthy for the writers to have communicated them to us, as they knew and understood them (and that they occasionally misunderstood them they themselves quite honestly admit), than to have been supernaturally inspired for the purpose, and even to have received a revelation in the form of a theophany? Through such weak human ideas we merely drag the Real, the truly Divine, into the dust, and from whom do these ideas of a divine inspiration or revelation come, if not from men as they were everywhere, whether in India or Judea? Everywhere the natural is divine, the supernatural or miraculous is human.

Even for the Apostles and the authors of the Gospels there was only one revelation: that was the revelation through Christ; and this has an entirely different meaning. To understand this, however, we must glance at what we know of the intellectual movements of that time. The Jewish nation cherished two great expectations. The one was ancient and purely Jewish, the expectation of the Messiah, the anointed (Christ), who should be the political and spiritual liberator of the chosen but enslaved people of Israel. The other was also Jewish, but transfused with Greek philosophy, the recognition of the word (Logos) as the Son of God, who should reconcile or unite humanity with God. The first declares itself most clearly, though not exclusively, in the three so-called Synoptic Gospels, the second in the so-called Gospel of John. But it is worthy of note how often these apparently remote ideas are found combined in the Gospels. The idea that a man can be the Son of God was blasphemy in a strict Jewish view, and it was for this reason that the last question of the high priest was, "I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God" (Matthew xxvi. 63). The Jewish Messiah could never be the Son of God, the Word, in the Christian sense of the term, but only in the sense in which many nations have called God the Father of men. In this sense, also, the Jews say (John viii. 4), "We have one father, even God," while they start back affrighted at the idea of a divine sonship of man. The Messiah, according to Jewish doctrine, was to be the son of David (Matthew xxii. 42), as the people appear to have called Jesus (Mark x. 47, xv. 39), and in order to counteract this view Christ himself said, in a passage of great historical import: "How then doth David in spirit call the Messiah Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If then David called him Lord, how is he his son?" With these words the true Messiah publicly renounced his royal descent from David, whilst he immediately laid claim to a much higher one. Of what use is it, then, that the author of the Gospel takes such pains in the first chapter to trace Joseph's descent genealogically from David, in spite of the fact that he does not represent Joseph himself as the natural father of Jesus?

These contradictions are quite conceivable in an age strongly influenced by different intellectual currents, but they would be intolerable in a revealed or divinely inspired book. All becomes intelligible, clear, and free from contradiction, if we see in the Synoptic Gospels that which they profess to be—narratives of what had long been told and believed in certain circles about the teaching and person of Christ. I say, what they themselves profess to be; for can we believe, that if the authors had really witnessed a miraculous vision, if every word and every letter had been whispered to them, they would have made no mention of it? They relate so many wonders, why not this one, the greatest of all? But it is not enough that they do not claim any miraculous communication for themselves or their works. Luke states in plain words the character of his gospel, "For as much as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eye-witnesses, and ministers of the word (Logos); it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty concerning the things wherein thou wast instructed."

What can be clearer? Theophilus had evidently received a not very systematic Christian training, such as was possible under the conditions of that time. As Luke says, there were even then several works on the matters of common belief among Christians. In order, however, that Theophilus may have a trustworthy knowledge of them, his friend (whether Luke or any one else) determines to communicate them to him in regular order, as they had been imparted to him, without asserting that he had himself been from the beginning an eye-witness of them, or a minister of the Word. It is apparent, therefore, that the writer rests upon a tradition derived from eye-witnesses, and that he had even investigated everything with care. Is it credible that he would not have made mention of a revelation or a theophany, had either fallen to his lot? He also lays stress upon his orderly arrangement, which probably implies that even at that time there were the same discrepancies in the sequence of events that we observe in the four Gospels, to say nothing about the numerous apocryphal Gospels. This is just what we as historians expected, in fact it could scarcely be otherwise. Christ's message had first to pass through the colloquial process, the leavening process of oral transmission; then followed the reduction to written form, and it is this that we have, apart from the corruptions of copyists. It is difficult to conceive how it could have been otherwise, and still we are not content with these facts, and imagine that we could have done it much better ourselves.

When we take the Synoptic Gospels one by one, we find in Luke the most complete and probably the latest sequence of all the important events; in Mark, the shortest and probably most original narrative, which only contains that which seemed to him undisputed or of the greatest importance; while Matthew, on the contrary, clearly presents the tradition formed and established among the Jewish Christians and believers in the Messiah.

If we may speak of communities at this early time, the community for which the first Gospel was intended manifestly consisted of converted Jews, who had recognised in Jesus their long-expected Messiah or Christ, and were, therefore, convinced that everything which had been expected of the Messiah came true in this Jesus. They went still farther. When they were once convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, many traditions arose which ascribed to him what he, if he were the Messiah, must have done. This is the pervading feature of the first Gospel, as every one who reads it carefully may easily be convinced. This alone explains the frequent and frank expression that this and that occurred "for thus it was written, and thus it was spoken by the prophet." Every idea of intentional invention of Messianic fulfilments, which has so often been asserted, disappears of itself in our interpretation of the origin of the Gospel. It must be so, people thought, and they soon told themselves and their children that it had been so, and all in good faith, for otherwise Jesus could not have been the expected Messiah.

If we examine the gospel of Matthew from this historical standpoint in detail, we find that it begins with an entirely unnecessary genealogy of Joseph, the ostensible father of Jesus. Then follows the birth, and this is confirmed in i. 22, "For all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet," namely, Isaiah (vii. 14), "Behold a maiden is with child and shall bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." This means simply that it will be the first-born son, and that he will be called "God is with us," and, therefore, certainly nothing supernatural.

The next story that the birth took place in Bethlehem, and that the wise men from the East saw the star over Bethlehem, is again founded on the prophet's word that the ruler of Israel would come from Bethlehem.

When the flight of Joseph and Mary to Egypt with the Christ child is told, it is again set forth in ii. 15, that what the prophet said might be fulfilled, "Out of Egypt have I called my son."

The massacre of the children in Bethlehem, with all its difficulties in the eyes of the historian, finds a sufficient reason in verse 17 on the words which were spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, "A voice was heard in Rama, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she would not be comforted, because they are not."

Later, when Joseph returns with the child and journeys to Nazareth, this too is explained by the words of the prophet, who said, "He shall be called a Nazarene."

On the false idea of the words of the prophet, that a Nazarene is an inhabitant of Nazareth, I shall say nothing here. Everything, even such popular errors, is quite intelligible from this point of view, and only shows how convinced the people were that Jesus was the Messiah, and therefore must have fulfilled everything which was expected of the Messiah. To us these fulfilments of the prophecy may not sound very convincing. But as a presentation of the ideas which then held sway over the people, and as proof of the grasp of the colloquial process, they are of great value to the historian.

The appearance of John the Baptist, too, is immediately explained by reference to prophetic words (iii. 3). And when Jesus, after the imprisonment of John, left his abode and removed to Capernaum, as was quite natural, this, likewise must have occurred (iv. 14-16) that certain words of Isaiah should be fulfilled.

There follows in the fifth to the seventh chapters the real kernel of Christian teaching in the sermon on the mount, and the announcement of the coming kingdom of God upon earth. Here we ask nothing more than a true statement, such as an apostle or his disciples were fully in a position to give us. No miraculous inspiration is needed for it; on the contrary, it would only injure for us the trustworthiness of the reporter. In the next chapters we read of the works done by Jesus, which were soon construed by the people as miracles, while in another place the evangelist sets the forgiveness of sins higher than all miracles, than all healing of the sick, and even declares this to be a power which God had given to men (ix. 8). Jesus himself often makes his healing power depend on the faith of the person to be healed, and of miraculous arts he says not a word (ix. 28). Next follow the appointment and despatch of the disciples, and soon after those words, which are so significant for this Gospel (xi. 27), "All things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the son willeth to reveal him." Here we have in a few words the true spirit, the true inspiration of the teaching which Christ proclaimed, that he was not only the Messiah or the son of David, but the true son of God, the Logos, which God willed when he willed man, the highest thought of God, the highest revelation of God, which was imparted in Jesus to blind humanity. We cannot judge of this so correctly as those who saw and knew Jesus in his corporeal existence, and found in him all those perfections, particularly in his life and conduct, of which human nature is capable. We must here rely on the evidence of his contemporaries who had no motive to discover in him, the son of a carpenter, the realisation on earth of the divine ideal of man, if this ideal had not stood realised in him, before their eyes, in the flesh. What is true Christianity if it be not the belief in the divine sonship of man, as the Greek philosophers had rightly surmised, but had never seen realised on earth? Here is the point, where the two great intellectual currents of the Aryan and Semitic worlds flow together, in that the long-expected Messiah of the Jews was recognised as the Logos, the true son of God, and that he opened or revealed to every man the possibility to become what he had always been, but had never before apprehended, the highest thought, the Word, the Logos, the Son of God. Knowing here means being. A man may be a prince, the son of a king, but if he does not know it, he is not so. Even so from all eternity man was the son of God, but until he really knew it, he was not so. The reporters in the Synoptic Gospels only occasionally recognise the divine sonship of man with real clearness, for in their view the practical element in Christianity was predominant, but in the end everything practical must be based upon theory or faith. Our duties toward God and man, our love for God and for man, are as nothing, without the firm foundation which is formed only by our faith in God, as the Thinker and Ruler of the world, the Father of the Son, who was revealed through him as the Father of all sons, of all men. Such sayings are especially significant in the Synoptic Evangelists, because it might appear as though they had not recognised the deepest mystery of the revelation of Christ, but were satisfied with the purely practical parts of his teachings. Shortly after, when Jesus again proves his healing powers among the people, and the Pharisees persecute him because the people were more and more inclined to recognise in him the son of David, the Evangelist again declares (xii. 17) that all this occurred that the words of the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled, "Behold my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased; I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall declare judgment unto the Gentiles."

Then follow many of the profoundest and most beautiful parables which contain the secrets of Christ's teaching, and of which some, as we read, and not by any means the most obscure, remained unintelligible even to the disciples. Even at that time his fame had become so great, that on returning to his own birthplace, the people would scarcely believe that he was the same as the son of the carpenter, that his mother was named Mary, and his brothers, Jacob, Joseph, Simon, and Judas, who like his sisters were all still living. Yet among his own people he could accomplish but few works. The Gospel then goes on to relate that as Herod had caused John to be beheaded, Jesus again withdrew to a lonely place, probably to escape the persecutions of Herod. Then follow the really important chapters, full of teachings and of parables, intended to illumine these teachings and to bring them home to the people. Here we naturally do not expect any appeal to the prophets; on the contrary we often find a very bold advance beyond the ancient law or a higher interpretation of the ancient Jewish teachings. As soon, however, as we return to facts like the last journey to Jerusalem, and the arrest of Jesus through the treachery of Judas, the words immediately recur that all this came to pass that the Scriptures should be fulfilled (xxvi. 54). Even Jesus himself, when he commands his disciples to make no resistance, must have added the words, "But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be," which clearly refers to the famous prophecy of Isaiah in the fifty-third chapter. Even the thirty pieces of silver which were paid Judas for his betrayal, are considered necessary, that a prophesy of Jeremiah's may be fulfilled. But it seems that this prophesy is not to be found in Jeremiah, and must be sought in Zechariah (xi. 12, 13). Such a confusion might easily occur among the people, imperfectly acquainted with the text of the prophets. In this case, therefore, it is quite harmless; but how could it possibly occur in a revealed gospel? At the crucifixion of Jesus the garments are divided, and another passage is immediately recalled, this time in a Psalm (xxii. 19), in which the poet says of himself that his enemies divided his garments between them, but there is no mention of the Messiah. Such an application of the words of the Psalm to Jesus is perfectly intelligible in the contemporary feeling of the Jewish people. Once convinced that Jesus was the Messiah or Christ, all the incidents of his life and death must necessarily remind them of the prophecies which had been current for years, and kept alive among them the hope of their deliverer. Such details were probably employed to deepen the conviction in themselves and others that Jesus was really the Messiah. This is all quite natural and comprehensible; but if we look at it with the idea that the writer was called and inspired by God, what must we say? First, in some cases there are plain errors which would be impossible in an infallible witness. Secondly, must we believe that such events as the birth of Christ in Bethlehem and his betrayal by Judas took place merely in order that certain prophecies might be fulfilled? This would reduce the life of Christ to a mere phantasm and rob it of its entire historical significance. Or shall we assume (as some critics have done) that all these events were simply invented to prove the Messiahship of Jesus?