My Library

—
CHAP. II
OLD INDIAN CREEDS
21
known that future life about which Moses is silent or
obscure.^ and that unity and omnipotence of the Creator
which were unknown to the polytheism of the Greek
and Roman multitude,- and to the dualism of the Mithraic legislators; while Vyasa perhaps surpassed Plato
in
keeping the people tremblingly alive to the punish-
ment w^hich awaited evil deeds."' The immortality of the
One is almost more willing to admit that, in effect, the
Jews generally held Jehovah to be their God only, or a limitary
divinity, than that the wise and instructed Moses
(whom
Strabo held to be an Egyptian priest and a Pantheist, as quoted
^
in Volney's Ruins, chap, xxii, § 9 note) could believe in the
perishable nature of the soul; but the critical Sadducees nevertheless so interpreted their prophet, although the Egyptians
his m.asters were held by Herodotus (Euterpe, cxxiii) to be the
first who defended the undying nature of the spirit of man.
Socrates and Plato, with all their longings. Could only feel
assured that the soul had more of immortality than aught
else. (Phaedo, Sydenham and Taylor's translation, iv. 324.)
- The unknown God of the Athenians, Fate, the avenging
Nemesis, and other powers independent of Zeus or Jupiter,
show the dissatisfaction of the ancient mind with the ordinary
mythology' [yet the unity of the Godhead was the doctrine of
the obscure Orpheus, of Plato the transcendentalist, and of
such practical men as Cicero and Socrates. J.D.C.]; and unless
modern criticism has detected interpolations, perhaps both
Bishop Thirlwall {History of Greece, i. 192, &c.) and Mr.
Grote {History of Greece i. 3 and chap, xvi, part i generally)
have too much disregarded the sense which the pious and
adipiring Cowper gave to Homer's occasional mode of using
'thebs'.
{Odyssey, xiv with Cowper's note, p. 48, vol. ii, edition
of 1802.)
[Cf. also the care of the Greek or the Roman in
addressing a deity, and in particular Zeus or Jupiter, in his
particular 'capacity' most suited to the occasion. Ed.]
'
Ritter (Ancient Philosophy, ii. 387) labours to excuse
Plato for his 'inattention' to the subject of duty or obligation,
on the plea that the Socratic system did not admit of necessity or of a compulsory principle.
[Nevertheless, Socrates, as
represented hy Xenophon, may be considered to have held
Worship of the Gods to be a Duty of Man. (See the Memo-
—
—
rabilia, b. iv, c. iii, iv, vi, and vii.)
J.D.C] Bacon lies open
in an inferior degree to the same objection as Plato, of under-
rating the importance of moral philosophy (cf. Hallam's
Literature of Europe, iii. 191, and Macaulay, Edinburgh. Review, July 1837, p. 84); and yet a strong sense of duty towards
God is essential to the well-being of society, if not to systems
of transcendental or material philospphy.
In the East, however, philosophy has always been more closely allied to theology than in civilized Greece or modern Europe. Plato, indeed,
arraigns the dead and torments the souls of the wicked (see
for instance Gorgias. Sydenham and Taylor's translation, iv,
451), and practically among men the doctrine may be effective
or sufficient; but with the Greek piety is simply justice towards the gods, and a matter of choice or pleasure on the part
of the imperishable human spirit. (Cf. Schleiermacher's Introductions to Plato's Dialogues, p. 181, &c., and Ritter's Ancient
Philosophy, ii. 374.) NOr can it be distinctly said that Vyasa
taught the principle of grateful righteousness as now under.