fume on the ax that fells it." He cites similar sentiments from Mahometan poets of Persia; "The verse of Saadi who represents a return of good for good as a slight reciprocity, but says to the virtuous man, "Confer benefits on him who has injured thee;" also the fanciful comparisons in the verses of Hafiz, the poet of Shiraz:

"Learn from yon orient shell to love thy foe,
And store with pearls the hand that brings thee woe.
Free like yon rock from base vindictive pride,
Emblaze with gems the wrist that rends thy side;
Mark where yon tree rewards the stony shower
With fruit nectareous or the balmy flower:
All nature cries aloud: shall man do less

Than heal the smitten and the railer bless?"

In closing his remarks on this subject he says, "My principal motive was to give you a speimen of the ancient oriental morality which is comprised in an infinite number of Persian, Arabic and Sanscrit compositions."*

The principle of the Golden Rule is expressed in various forms by Herodotus, Thales, Pittacus, Lysias, Isocrates, Diogenes Laertius, (who cites it as an expression of Aristotle), Seneca, Ovid, Terence, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. It has commonly been said that Confucius gave it only in the negative form. But Prof. Ezra Abbot has shown that he has given it both in the negative and the positive forms.†

It is to be noted that, while ancient writers set forth the Golden Rule, they do not commonly set it forth as the action or expression of the heart's love to man, nor recognize its essential connection with love to God. This is not surprising, however, since it is only when man comes to know the one only God, and thus attains the conception of a universal religion, that he comes to know the solidarity of the human race in one moral system, and thus is able to appreciate the deeper grounds of his interest in man in their common relation to God as their father. Herein we see the great superiority of the ethics of Jesus Christ, who teaches that man's duty to man is inseparable from his duty to God, and can neither be understood in its true significance nor prac tised in its true spirit apart from his duty to Him.

Plato, however, recognizes this relation and teaches that our duty is determined by our membership in the moral system under the government of God. "The ruler of the universe has ordered all things with

* Discourse XI. before the Asiatic Society. The Philosophy of the ancient East; Works, Vol. III. pp. 243, 245. London, 1807.

Journal of the Am. Oriental Soc. Vol. IX.

a view to the preservation and perfection of the whole, of which each part has its fitting action and passion, and every minutest action and passion of each part to the last fraction has its appointed supervision. Of these parts one is thine, stubborn youth, which, however little, always influences the whole. You forget that this, and everything that comes into being, exists for the whole, that the whole may be blessed. You exist for the whole, not the whole for "* you."

To the same purport is the discourse of Epictetus. "If what philosophers say of the kinship between God and men be true, what has any one to do but, like Socrates, when he is asked what countryman he is, never to say that he is a citizen of Athens or of Corinth, but of the universe. For why, if you limit yourself to Athens, do you not farther limit yourself to that mere corner of Athens where your body was born? . . . . He who understands the administration of the universe and has learned that the principal and greatest and most comprehensive of all things is this vast system extending from men to God; and that from him the seeds of being are descended, not only to one's father or grandfather, but to all things that are produced and born on earth, and especially to rational natures, as they alone are qualified to partake of a communication with the Deity, being connected with him by reason; why may not such a one call himself a citizen of the universe? why not a son of God?"†

So also Plutarch: "It is not so much noble to confer benefits on those who love us as ignoble to refrain from doing so; but to pass over an occasion of revenge, to show meekness or forbearance to an enemy, to pity him in distress, to bring help to him in need, to assist his sons and family if they desire it, any one who will not love this man for his compassion and commend him for his charity, must have a black heart made of adamant or iron, as Pindar says."‡

Cicero also recognizes the basis of law in reason and its origin in God: "Right reason is the true law, congruent with nature, universally diffused, unchanging, everlasting; which imperatively commands to duty and forbids fraud; which, nevertheless, while it requires rectitude, leaves me free to obey or to disobey. No authority exists to repeal this law, or to detract anything from it, or to enact any law contrary to it. Neither by the Senate nor the People can we be absolved from our obligation to obey it. Nor is there any authoritative expounder of the law other than itself. Nor will there be one law in Rome, another in Athens, one law now, another hereafter; but one everlasting and

* Laws, Book X., 903.

† Discourses, Book I., chap. 9, Higginson and Carter's Translation.
On Receiving Profit from Enemies, 9.

undying law will hold together all nations in all time, and will be the one common master, as it were, and commander of all. It is God who is the author, the judge and the enactor of this law. He who will not obey it must flee from himself and spurn the nature of man; and herein he will suffer the severest punishments, even if he escape other inflictions commonly regarded as penalties."*

Of the divine origin of law the Chorus in Sophocles' Edipus Tyrannus says (864-873): "Oh that the Fate may favor me in reverent purity of word and deed, commanded by laws fixed on high, the offspring of the heavenly Aether, of which Olympus alone is the father, which are not the offspring of the mortal nature of man, nor does forgetfulness ever put them to sleep. The great God is in them and never grows old. Lawless and violent caprice begets the tyrant." Of the ancient Egyptian ethics M. Chabas says: "None of the Christian virtues is forgotten in it; piety, charity, gentleness, self-command in word and action, the protection of the weak, benevolence towards the humble, deference to superiors, respect for property, . . . . all is expressed there."†

VII. It remains to consider some objections.

1. It is objected that there is no agreement in the moral sentiments of mankind. Practices which are regarded as praiseworthy in some. ages or countries, are condemned as crimes in others. The answer is that there is an agreement in the principle by which these conflicting acts are justified. They who justify slave-holding argue that it is best for the slave and best for freemen; that it is essential in the best constitution of society. Their arguments are appeals to the law of love, just as really as are the arguments of those who condemn it. Hindoo women cast their children into the Ganges. They justify it by saying that we ought to give our most precious things to God, and that the sacrifice insures the eternal felicity of the child and of the mother; thus they appeal to the law that we should, love God with all our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves. The rumseller justifies his business by reasoning that he must provide for his own family; that alcoholic drink is beneficial; that its licensed sale causes less drunkenness than its prohibition; he appeals to the law of love. In these and all similar cases the difference is not as to the supremacy and obligation of the law of love, but as to questions of fact.

It must be further considered that the same outward act which in some cases truly expresses regard for the rights and welfare of others, may in other cases violate their rights and hinder their welfare. Pa

* Fragmenta: De Republica, Lib. III.; Opera: Boston, 1817, Vol. XVII., pp. 185, 186.

† Quoted Renouf's Religion of Egypt, p. 74; see 74-80.

rental love sends the child when healthy to school, but when sickly keeps it at home. Our Saviour teaches that in a rude state of society a custom may be left unopposed, because society must make further moral progress before it can understand the evil and develop a wise and effective opposition. *

2. It is also objected that savage races have been found entirely destitute of moral ideas and of knowledge of moral distinctions.

If so, they are but children of a larger growth. The objector overlooks the facts that principles are constitutional norms, not inborn ideas; that they presuppose a certain development of the being and some occasion in experience before they influence action: and that they practically influence action before they are recognized or formulated in reflective thought. The fact that a child or a savage denies all knowledge of the difference between right and wrong is entirely compatible with the influence of moral motives and action under their influence, which would reveal the moral nature to any intelligent observer.

No evidence sufficient to establish the fact alleged by the objector has ever been adduced. Travelers are commonly untrained to scientific observation and ignorant of the savages' language; they found their conclusions on a brief and superficial acquaintance. Their testimony also is merely negative, to what they have not observed, not to any facts positively incompatible with the existence of moral motives and emotions. Even missionaries who have dwelt among savages may deceive themselves by demanding a kind of evidence not necessary to prove the fact and, in the circumstances, not to be expected. Thus Mr. Moffat denied that the inferior tribes of South Africa had any moral sentiments. Yet in the same volume he relates that one of these natives came to him in great indignation because one of his tribe had stolen his cattle, and dwelt on the aggravation of the offence by the fact that the thief was one whom he had recently helped and befriended in a time of distress. All this is palpable evidence of moral feeling, though Mr. Moffat was not intelligent enough to perceive it. We have also the testimony of specialists of high authority in anthropology. Quatrefages says: "Confining ourselves rigorously to the region of facts and carefully avoiding the territory of philosophy and theology, we may state without hesitation that there is no human society or even association in which the idea of good and evil is not represented by certain acts regarded by the members of that society or association as morally good or morally bad." Tylor, the author of "Primitive Culture,"

Matt. xix. 7, 8.

† Moffat's Missionary Labors and Scenes in South Africa,
Human Species, p. 459, Appleton's Ed., B. X., chap. 34.

says: "Glancing down the moral scale among mankind at large, we find no tribe standing at or near zero. The asserted existence of savages so low as to have no moral standard is too groundless to be discussed. Every human tribe has its general views as to what conduct is right and what wrong, and each generation hands the standard onwards to the next. Even in the details of those moral standards, wide as their differences are, there is a yet wider agreement throughout the human race."*

Contemporary Review, April, 1873. See the same conclusion in Tylor's Primitive Culture, Vol. I., pp. 219, 386; Sir Henry Maine's Village Communities, p. 17; Renouf's Religion of Ancient Egypt, pp. 130, 131.