No More Learning

In both of his books, Mulford's philosophical standpoint is that
of Hegel, especially in regarding every human institution as the
embodiment of an idea which virtually constitutes its soul or proper
life. The nation and the church he talks about are our ideal, and
the outward form is the government; the church organizations are
of little consequence except as the visible body of the metaphysical
entity behind them. This tone of thought is not in favor at present:
his writings are highly valued but by a chosen few; and his philoso-
phy seems mystical or impractical to many. Mulford's literary style
is marred by the saturation of his mind with the mannerisms of the
German metaphysicians. Nevertheless, there is a weight and dignity
in it which is found only in the pages of the writers of the greatest
periods, and there are many passages which in rhythm and power
are hardly to be matched in American prose.
Mr. Mulford was of singularly attractive and unselfish character.
His gifts as a conversationalist and occasional speaker were of a high
order, for he never failed to idealize the subject in hand in a pecul-
iarly felicitous manner. Many of his sermons were of singular beauty
and elevation, but only the memory of them remains. At the time
of his death in 1885 he had projected several important works. His
grave is in the cemetery at Concord, not far from the graves of
Emerson and Hawthorne.
As a political thinker, Mr. Mulford won recognition from those
to whom the thought-element, the moral in the highest sense, is re-
garded as the basis of the nature of the State. President Garfield,
Charles Sumner, Wayne MacVeagh, President Angell, Professor Di-
man, F. D. Maurice, and Dean Stanley, among others, testified warmly
to their appreciation of the force and elevation of The Nation. '
The austere dignity which characterizes the 'Republic of God' has
strengthened the faith and comforted the hearts of many who
have come to feel that theology was a "baseless fabric," or at best
a metaphysical system resting on traditionary assumptions. It can
hardly be doubted that when the present tendency to exalt the con-
crete both in philosophy and worship shall have spent its force, the
'Republic of God' will be turned to by sincere Christians as one of
the great modern "Institutes in Theology. "


## p. 10417 (#245) ##########################################

ELISHA MULFORD
10417
[The following selections are taken from The Nation, copyright 1870
by E. Mulford, and from The Republic of God,' copyright 1881 by Elisha
Mulford; and are reprinted by permission of Mrs. Mulford, and of Houghton,
Mifflin & Co. , the publishers. ]
THE NATION IS A CONTINUITY
From The Nation'
IT
T NO more exists complete in a single period of time than does
the race; it is not a momentary existence, as if defined in
some circumstance. It is not composed of its present occu-
pants alone, but it embraces those who are, and have been,
and shall be. There is in it the continuity of the generations; it
reaches backward to the fathers and onward to the children, and
its relation is manifest in its reverence for the one and its hope
for the other.
The evidence of this continuity is in the consciousness of a
people. It appears in the apprehension of the nation as an in-
heritance received from the fathers, to be transmitted unimpaired
to the children. This conviction, that has held the nation as a
heritage worth living and worth dying for, has inspired the devo-
tion and sacrifice of a people.
The evidence of this continuity is also in the fact that the
spirit of a people always contemplates it. The nation has never
existed which placed a definite termination to its existence—a
period when its order was to expire and the obligation to its law
to cease. It cannot anticipate a time when it shall be resolved
into its elements, but contends with the intensity of life against
every force which threatens dissolution. Those who have repre-
sented the State as a compact, have yet held it to be a perpetual
one, in which the children are bound by the acts of their fathers.
This continuity is the condition of the existence of the nation
in history. The nation persists through a form of outward cir-
cumstance. Judea was the same under the judges and under the
kings; Rome was the same under the kings and under the con-
suls. The elements of the being of the nation subsist in this
continuity. In it, also, the products of human effort are con-
served, and the law of human production conforms to it. The
best attainments pass slowly from their germ to their perfectness,
as in the growth of the language and the law, the arts and the
literature of a people. Chaucer and Spenser, through intervals of
XVIII-652


## p. 10418 (#246) ##########################################

10418
ELISHA MULFORD
slow advance, precede Shakespeare, as Giotto and Perugino lead
the way to Michael Angelo and Raphael.
The nation is a continuity, as also in itself the product of
succeeding generations. It transcends the achievement of a sin-
gle individual or a separate age. The life of the individual is
not its measure. In its fruition there is the work of the gen-
erations; and even in the moments of its existence, the expres-
sion of their spirit, the blending of the strength of youth, the
resolve of manhood, and the experience of age-the hope and
the inspiration of the one, the wisdom and repose of the other.
There is the spirit which is always young, and yet always full of
years; and even in its physical course the correspondence to an
always renewed life.
-
This continuity has found expression in the highest political
thought. Shakespeare has it in his historical plays: the continu-
ity of the nation is represented as existing through the years
with the vicissitudes of the people, in the changes of scene,
with the coming and going of men; and there is, as in the
nation, the unity of the drama in which so many actors move,
and whose events revolve from age to age; and thus these plays
hold an attraction apart from the separate scenes and figures
which present some isolated ideal for the poet to shape. Burke
has represented this continuity in the nation as moving through
generations, in a life which no speculative schemes and no legal
formulas may compass: "The nation is indeed a partnership, but
a partnership not only between those who are living, but between
those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to
be born. "
THE NATION THE REALIZATION OF FREEDOM
From The Nation'
HERE is always a tendency in those withdrawn from the bat-
tle, and its "confused noise and garments rolled in blood,"
to bear its issues into some ideal and abstract sphere.
Thus the war is represented as the immediate conflict of the
antagonistic ideas, freedom and slavery. The reality is other
than this: the hosts are mustered in no intellectual arena, and
the forces called into its field are other than spectral ideas.
This tendency to resolve history into the conflict and progress of


## p. 10419 (#247) ##########################################

ELISHA MULFORD
10419
abstract ideas, or the development of what is called an intellect-
ual conception, can apprehend nothing of the real passion of
history. It knows not what, with so deep significance, is called
the burden of history. It enters not into the travail of time, it
discerns not the presence of a living Person in the judgments
which are the crises of the world. It comprehends only some
intellectual conflict in the issue of necessary laws, but not the
strife of a living humanity. The process of a legal formula, the
evolution of a logical sequence, the supremacy of abstract ideas,-
this has nothing to compensate for the agony and the suffering
and the sacrifice of the actual battle, and it discerns not the real
glory of the deliverance of humanity, the real triumph borne
through but over death. There was in the war, in the issue
which came upon us, "even upon us," and in the sacrifice of
those who were called, the battle of the nation for its very
being; and it was the nation which met slavery in mortal strife.
The inevitable conflict was of slavery with the life of the nation.
There is no vague rhetoric, but a deep truth, in the words
"Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable. " They
are worthy to live upon the lips of the people, for there can be
no union without freedom, since slavery has its necessary result
in the dissolution of the being of the nation; and there can be
no freedom without union, for it is only in the being of the
nation that freedom becomes real.
THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND
From The Nation'
BU
UT in the existence of the nation, which is the substance of
civilization, there is a power higher than the necessary
process of the physical world. It exists in the order of the
moral world. This cannot be determined by physical elements.
The history of the world cannot be deduced from its geography.
In the political course of the nation the land is a necessary ele-
ment, but it is not the creative nor the controlling element. The
future of the nation will not be concluded by its relative near-
ness to the equator. The nation exists historically in the reali-
zation of the freedom of man, and his consequent dominion over
Mr. Buckle, when he stood in Judea, avowed that his
nature.


## p. 10420 (#248) ##########################################

10420
ELISHA MULFORD
only interest was in the agriculture of the country: but the soil
is the same upon which a people lived who stood in the continu-
ity of a nation, which long captivity in strange lands and under
strange skies did not destroy, whose unity was lost in the grand-
eur of no imperialism, and whose lines of kings and prophets
looked to the coming of One in whom was the hope of humanity;
but the physical process of nature does not renew that life. The
mountains of Attica are the same upon which the Parthenon was
built, and their quarries the same which furnished marble for
the sculpture of Athene, and the windy plains are the same upon
which an army was mustered at Marathon, and the sea is the
same whose waves were parted by their ships at Salamis; but
the conflict which in its moral interest made these names immor-
tal, has closed.
THE PERSONALITY OF MAN
From The Republic of God'
THE
HE personality of man is not to be represented as a reflection
of the personality of God. It is no remote imitation and no
faint impression of the personality of God. It is real. It
has the strength of the free spirit. It moves among the fleeting
forms and fading images of the finite, where shadow pursues
shadow, but it is not of them. In the accident of time it is con-
scious of a life "builded far from accident. "
The personality of God is the ground of his relation with the
personality of man. Without personality in God, he would, so
far as the knowledge of man goes, be lower than man; and with-
out personality in man, there would be no ground of relation to
God.
THE PERSONALITY OF GOD
From The Republic of God'
THE
HE personality of God is the postulate of the knowledge of
God. In this human life and these human relations, in the
knowledge of a person by a person, there are elements of
strength and love, elements of freedom which are deeper than
those which exist in the knowledge of the physical world. The
knowledge of the physical process is the result of observation


## p. 10421 (#249) ##########################################

ELISHA MULFORD
10421
and comparison; it is the fruit of research: but in human rela-
tions there are other elements. There is a knowledge which is
not the result of experiment, and yet may come through experi-
ence. Thus, for instance, one will not experiment on a friend,
and sympathy and love are not among the results of research.
There may be in the words, I know Him in whom I have believed,
a deeper knowledge than that which man obtains through the
external observation of phenomena.
THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
From The Republic of God'
THE
HE conditions of this process are those of conflict, a struggle
for existence; it is "the rack of this tough world," and one
form passes beyond another form by survival. There are in
nature elements of subsistence for production and for destruction.
One race to subsist must prey with ravin upon another race.
There is the adaptation of the wing of the crow and of the tooth.
of the shark. There is a strange intermingling in the poison
that fills the chalice of the most beautiful flower, the malaria
that is borne upon the softest airs, the colors that gleam re-
splendently in the sinuous folds of the serpent. There is the
fair light that illumines the dawn and empurples the evening, but
throws its radiance over mists and exhalations. There are smooth
waters that bear the reflection of the clouds which hold the
tempest, and are changed with the clouds which burst over them
into the rage of cruel seas. The tides rise and fall with almost
changeless precision; but they are swept by the storm that marks
their lines with wreck. By the cleft and broken strata of the
rocks, one may still seem to hear "the sea rehearse its ancient
song of chaos. " There is in nature that which is beautiful, and
that which is fantastic and monstrous. These aspects of nature
become more apparent in tropical countries, where there is a
stronger movement of the impulse, the passion of nature, with
more impetuous energies. Thus in India there are more images
and shrines of supplication to Siva the destroyer, than to Brahma
the creator and Vishnu the preserver.


## p. 10422 (#250) ##########################################

10422
ELISHA MULFORD
THE SCRIPTURES
From The Republic of God'
HE Bible is a book written in literal forms, subject to the
ordinary rules of construction, as defined in the science of
grammar.
The Bible is a book written in languages, as the Hebraic, the
Chaldaic, the Greek, or Græco-Hebraic; subject to the ordinary
rules of derivation and distinction, as defined in the science of
comparative philology.
The Bible is a book written in manuscripts; which require
in their transcription and authentication the critical study which
belongs to the science which-in comparing, for instance, the
uncial with other styles-is the science which deals with scriptory
forms.
The Bible is a book which has been subject to the mutations
of literature. It is written in manuscripts of unequal value, no
one of which is entirely perfect in itself, so as to displace all
others, and none are free from obscure or various readings. It
has suffered simply the mutations of literature, and has had no
exemptions from them.
It embraces the most varied forms of literature; as genealo-
gies, laws, histories, records of legislative and judicial procedure,
methods of sanitary, civil, and military administration. There is
legend and myth. There are various forms of poetry: the ode,
as in the antiphone of Moses and Miriam; the drama, as in the
Book of Job; the idyl, as in the Song of Solomon; the lyric, as
in the Book of the Psalms, and the opening pages of the Gospel
of St. Luke; and in the writings of St. Paul, citations from the
Greek comedy, as from Menander.
These Scriptures embraced, in substance, all the literature that
the ancient Hebrew people possessed. Their productions in art
and music always remained rude and simple, and in architecture
they were the common adaptations of a primitive mode of life, or
often the reproduction of forms copied from Egypt, or imported
from Phoenicia.
There are traces in these writings of the races, countries,
and ages in which they appeared, and of climatic conditions with.
respect to languages, customs, and laws. There is a popular
element, as in the stories of Samson and Ruth; and there is
also a priestly and a kingly element, as in the Books of the


## p. 10423 (#251) ##########################################

ELISHA MULFORD
10423
Chronicles and Kings. In some books there are the traces of
reflective phases of thought, as in the Book of Ecclesiastes; and
in some there are traces of Asiatic forms and Asiatic institu-
tions.
These Scriptures were written by various writers in various
ages, and bear the note and accent of the individuality of these
writers in their modes of expression. If it needs to be said,
the literary forms of the older parts rise often to great dignity
of expression, as the later chapters of Isaiah and the books of
Hosea and Job; and they have, in this quality, a comparative
excellence in the literature of the world. There is in the New
Testament not an indifference to literary form, but no distinction
of literary form. These writings are simply narrative; in a
biographical arrangement, or in the style of letters that are few
and direct and very unequal in their expression. There is a his-
torical narrative of a discursive character, apparently embracing
the work of various writers. The Epistle to the Hebrews has
a singular finish, with an antithetic expression, and an elaborate
detail of historical portraiture, that indicates the culture of the
writer in the schools of rhetoric in his age. The evangel of
St. Luke is commended for the diligence and thoroughness of its
research. The writings of St. Paul, in the Epistles, which may
be distinctively called catholic, indicate more plainly the modifica-
tions to which the Greek language was subject when it became
the instrument for the expression of Hebrew forms of thought;
and they indicate also, in their illustrative expression, the influ-
ence of a knowledge of Roman law in an age of great Roman
lawyers. But the writings of St. Paul have no literary form to
commend them,-to bring them into comparison, in Greek with
the consummate beauty of phrase in Æschylus, or the repose
in the style of Plato, or the sustained strength of the masterful
style of Aristotle. There is often, from language of great ele-
vation, a lapse to some digressive phrase; as, for an extreme
instance, in the thirty-third verse of the fifteenth chapter of the
first Epistle to the Corinthians, which drops and moves on with
a quotation from the Greek comedy. They lack the form which
belongs to the great hymns of the Vedas, and the constructive
unity and consonance with a formal system which belongs to the
Koran. The Koran is also better preserved, and has suffered less
in transcription, with proportionately fewer obscure or various.
readings. The style has no distinctive quality: but they who, in


## p. 10424 (#252) ##########################################

10424
ELISHA MULFORD
common parlance with religious society, speak of their beautiful
liturgy, suggest a comparison with the hymns of the Vedas; and
they who write of the poetry of the Bible must draw their paral-
lel with Eschylus and Shakespeare, and the masters of the liter-
ary art to which they invite attention.
The Bible has a unity which is deeper than any structural
form, however various and complete. This prevails with a con-
tinuous and continually increasing manifestation through the
whole. It is not merely the unity which appears in the literature
of a people, as the Latin or the English literature: it is that, but
it is more and other than that. It is not merely the unity which
attaches to the continuous history, the institutions, laws, customs,
wars of a people: it is that, but it is more and other than that.
The Bible is the record of the revelation of God. It is the
record of a revelation of God in man and to the world. It is
testamentary to the revelation of God to and through the world.
This revelation, and not a literature nor a body of traditions, is
the ground of the unity which it discovers. It is the record of
the revelation of God, in his revelation with humanity; in the
fulfillment of his eternal purpose, which was before the foundation
of the world; in the righteousness in which he manifests his own
being, and in the life which he has given for the world. It
is of the coming of his kingdom, in which the kingdoms of this
world become the kingdoms of Christ. It is of a revelation in
an order in the world, of the family and the nation. It is of a
revelation of and in the Christ.


## p. 10425 (#253) ##########################################

10425
FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
(1823-)
BY HENRY A. STIMSON
ROFESSOR MAX MÜLLER has told an incident that occurred early
in his Oxford life, which not only fixes his parentage but
introduces us to the rare literary circle that opened to him
in England, and which did so much for his future career.
P
He was invited to meet Thackeray at a little dinner. Müller had
as yet mastered English but imperfectly, and was moreover some-
what awed by the great man. A fine fish,
a John Dory, was brought on; when Thack-
eray turned his large spectacled eyes upon
the stranger, and said, "Are you going to
eat your own ancestor? " Everybody stared
in silence; looking very grave and learned,
Thackeray said, "Surely you are the son of
the Dorian Müller- the Müller who wrote
that awfully learned book on the Dorians:
and was not John Dory the ancestor of all
the Dorians? " In the laugh that followed,
Müller replied that he was not the son of
Ottfried Müller, who wrote on the Dorians,
but of Wilhelm Müller the poet, who wrote
'Die Homerische Vorschule'; and as to John
Dory being his ancestor, that was impossible, as the original John
Dory was il Janitore,- that is, St. Peter,- and he had no wife. After
which quick repartee the young scholar was well launched.
F. MAX MÜLLER
He was then but twenty-five years of age. He was born at Des-
sau, December 6th, 1823. After studying in Leipzig and Berlin, taking
his degree in 1843, and publishing his first Sanskrit work in 1844, he
went to Paris to study with the great Orientalist, Burnouf. Recog-
nizing his abilities, Burnouf helped him to decide upon a career,
and directed him to England; whither he went in 1846 to collate
manuscripts for an edition of the Rig-Veda, the Sacred Hymns of the
Brahmins.

In London he introduced himself to the Prussian Minister, Baron
Bunsen, who became his lifelong friend, and by whose good offices


## p. 10426 (#254) ##########################################

10426
FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
the East India Company was induced to bear the expense of the
first edition of the 'Rig-Veda. ' The troubled state of affairs on the
Continent made it more easy for the student, whose life work was
to be so largely among cumbersome and illegible manuscripts, to take
advantage of the quiet seclusion of England. He went at once to
Oxford, and that became his future home.
It is no strange thing for foreign scholars to visit London and
the English universities, but it is not easy for them to become domes-
ticated there. Erasmus tried it for a year; Taine, with all his admir-
ation for things English, was never more than a visitor; and such
Orientalists as Renan, Darmesteter, and Burnouf did not make the
attempt. In "the don city," where, as Bunsen warned him, "every
English idiosyncrasy strengthens itself, and buries itself in coteries,"
Müller settled with such success that ten years later, in 1858, Bunsen
wrote to him: "Without ceasing to be a German, you have appro-
priated all that is excellent and superior in English life; and of that
there is much. "
Oxford was very hospitable to him. He was invited to lecture
before the University in 1850, made honorary M. A. of Christ Church
in 1851, elected Taylorian professor in 1854, curator of the Bodleian
Library in 1856, fellow of All Souls in 1858; and in 1868 was named in
the act of convocation for the chair of comparative philology, the
first professorship ever created by the University itself. He resigned
this in 1875, but has since remained in Oxford, engaged by the Uni-
versity to edit a series of translations of the Sacred Books of the
East. ' He has been a prolific author on a large variety of subjects,
and a frequent and welcomed lecturer.
His life work has been editing the text and furnishing translations
of the Rig-Veda; and by this he would probably prefer to be remem-
bered. But he is better known to the public, and has exerted a wide
and powerful influence by his writings on The Science of Language,'
'The Science of Religion,' and collateral topics. His lectures on the
Science of Language, delivered in 1861 and 1862 in the Royal Insti-
tution, London, attracted wide attention, passed through many edi-
tions when published, and are asserted to have made good for the
first time the claims of philology to be ranked among the sciences.
He carried out his theories in the realm of religion in the Gifford
Lectures before the University of Glasgow in 1889, 1891, 1892, and
1893; and in the Hibbert Lectures, of which he was chosen to deliver
the first series on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated
by the Religions of India, in the chapter house of Westminster in
1878.
His theories of the origin and growth of language have been
strenuously combated, and his accuracy as an observer and collater


## p. 10427 (#255) ##########################################

FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
10427
of facts sometimes discredited; notably by the accomplished Ameri-
can Orientalist, the late Professor W. D. Whitney of Yale University.
He has been exposed to the danger of hasty and superficial general-
izations: but his doctrine of myths as originating in the natural
phenomena of the sky-the sun, the moon, the dawn - has awak-
ened wide interest, and greatly stimulated intelligent investigation;
while his effort to make a science of religion-with a law of growth,
a steady absorption of new material, and a historical procedure -
while still recognizing that religion is an aspiration, and in its essence
what neither sense nor reason can supply, has done much to broaden
Christian sympathies, and to open the way for those wider studies
into the history of other religions, which are to-day laying surer
foundations for religion itself. He modestly speaks of his labors in
this department as "but a desire and a seed. "
He has not been disappointed in his aim to help build again the
bridge between the East and the West, which stood firm in earliest
times, but which, while never altogether destroyed for the great na-
tions of antiquity, has been broken in the course of the historic
centuries. It is much to have been a leader in the labors of the dis-
tinguished band of Orientalists, as a result of which we are enabled
to-day to read the thoughts, comprehend the motives, hear the pray-
ers, understand the life, and know the business, the worship, the laws,
the poetry, of a world buried from three to eight thousand years.
Professor Max Müller's command of a beautiful and virile English
style has had much to do with his success. The captious Saturday
Review has called him "really one of the best English writers of the
day. "
A passage to illustrate both his manner and his views may be
taken from his inaugural address as president of the Congress of
Orientalists in 1892-
"What people call 'mere words are in truth the monuments of the finest
intellectual battles, triumphal arches of the grandest victories, won by the
intellect of man. When man had found names for body and soul, for father
and mother, and not till then, did the first act of human history begin. Not
till there were names for right and wrong, for God and man, could there
be anything worthy of the name of human society. Every new word was
a discovery; and these early discoveries, if but properly understood, are
more important to us than the greatest conquests of the Kings of Egypt and
Babylon. Not one of our greatest explorers has unearthed with his spade or
pickaxe more splendid palaces and temples, whether in Egypt or in Babylon,
than the etymologist. Every word is the palace of a human thought; and in
scientific etymology we possess the charm with which to call these ancient
thoughts back to life. Languages mean speakers of language; and families
of speech presuppose real families, or classes, or powerful confederacies, which
have struggled for their existence, and held their ground against all enemies. »


## p.
10428 (#256) ##########################################

10428
FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
His marriage to Miss Grenfell, by which he became connected
with the families of Charles Kingsley and of Froude, served only to
widen and render more intimate the circle of literary and profes-
sional friends which has been so characteristic of Müller's life from
the first. In Leipzig, Hermann, Haupt, and Brockhaus; in Berlin,
Alexander von Humboldt and Boeckh; in Paris, Burnouf; in England,
Thackeray, Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Clough, Jowett, Ruskin,-
and indeed almost every one of prominence in scientific and liter-
ary affairs, have been his friends or have been helpful to his fame.
This argues exceptional gifts of heart and person, as well as of in-
tellect. His strong and beautiful face, now crowned with a wealth
of snowy hair, shines with eager intelligence and the sweetness of
thorough kindliness. As an instance of this kindliness, it is related
that two young ladies, strangers, from some unknown motive wrote
him asking advice in the choice of a language to study, of which
no one in England knew anything. His answer reveals his amiabil-
ity and genuine helpfulness. He writes:-
―
"It is by no means easy to reply to your inquiry. To take up any work
in good earnest is a most excellent thing; and I should be the last person to
find fault with anybody for fixing on learning a language, even for the mere
sake of learning something. Yet it is right that our work should have some
useful object beyond the mere pleasure of working.
I take it that lit-
erature would form an object to you in the choice of a language. »
Then he suggests several languages, giving reasons for each, ending
with a pleasant wish for their perseverance and success.
He has directed his studies largely in the line of religion, because
religion is to him a cherished personal possession. In his lecture
on Missions delivered in Westminster Abbey, December 3d, 1873, he
says:-
•
"There is one kind of faith that revels in words, there is another that can
hardly find utterance: the former is like riches that come to us by inherit-
ance, the latter is like the daily bread which each of us has to win by the
sweat of his brow. The former we cannot expect from new converts; we
ought not to expect it or exact it, for fear it might lead to hypocrisy and
superstition. .
We want less of creeds but more of trust, less of cere-
mony but more of work, less of solemnity but more of genial honesty, less of
doctrine but more of love. There is a faith as small as a grain of mustard
seed; but that grain alone can remove mountains, and more than that, it can
move hearts. »
Theories are forgotten, and sciences are outgrown; but to have
been the inspiring leader of many in the onward march of knowl-
edge, and to have achieved a serene and rounded character, go far
to amply crown any life.


## p. 10429 (#257) ##########################################

FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
10429
"Denn wer den Besten seiner Zeit genug
Gethan, der hat gelebt für alle Zeiten. »
"That which lived
True life, lives on. "
But to have added to this that which should accompany old age,—
"honor, love, and troops of friends," -fills the cup of the most am-
bitious scholar, and leaves little in this world to be desired.
Nauyet Minima
ON THE MIGRATION OF FABLES
From Chips from a German Workshop›
con
"C
OUNT not your chickens before they be hatched," is a well-
known proverb in English; and most people, if asked
what was its origin, would probably appeal to La Fon-
taine's delightful fable, 'La Laitière et le Pot au Lait. ' We all
know Perrette, lightly stepping along from her village to the town,
and in her day-dreams selling her milk for a good sum, then
buying a hundred eggs, then selling the chickens, then buying
a pig, fattening it, selling it again, and buying a cow with a
calf. The calf frolics about, and kicks up his legs-so does Per-
rette; and alas! the pail falls down, the milk is spilt, her riches
gone, and she only hopes when she comes home that she may
escape a flogging from her husband.
Did La Fontaine invent this fable? or did he merely follow
the example of Sokrates, who, as we know from the 'Phædon,'
occupied himself in prison, during the last days of his life, with
turning into verse some of the fables - or as he calls them, the
myths of Æsop.
La Fontaine published the first six books of his fables in
1668; and it is well known that the subjects of most of these
fables were taken from Æsop, Phædrus, Horace, and other clas-
sical fabulists, -if we may adopt this word "fabuliste," which La
Fontaine was the first to introduce into French.


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FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
In 1678 a second of these six books was published, enriched
by five books of new fables; and in 1694 a new edition appeared,
containing one additional book, thus completing the collection of
his charming poems.
The fable of Perrette stands in the seventh book; and was
published, therefore, for the first time in the edition of 1678. In
the preface to that edition, La Fontaine says: "It is not neces-
sary that I should say whence I have taken the subjects of these
new fables. I shall only say, from a sense of gratitude, that I
owe the largest portion of them to Pilpay, the Indian sage. "
If then La Fontaine tells us himself that he borrowed the
subjects of most of his new fables from Pilpay, the Indian sage,
we have clearly a right to look to India in order to see whether,
in the ancient literature of that country, any traces can be dis-
covered of Perrette with the milk-pail.
Sanskrit literature is very rich in fables and stories; no other
literature can vie with it in that respect; nay, it is extremely
likely that fables, in particular animal fables, had their principal
source in India. In the sacred literature of the Buddhists, fables
held a most prominent place. The Buddhist preachers, address-
ing themselves chiefly to the people, to the untaught, the un-
cared-for, the outcast, spoke to them as we still speak to children,
in fables and parables. Many of these fables and parables must
have existed before the rise of the Buddhist religion; others, no
doubt, were added on the spur of the moment, just as Sokrates
would invent a myth or fable whenever that form of argument
seemed to him most likely to impress and convince his hearers.
But Buddhism gave a new and permanent sanction to this whole
branch of moral mythology; and in the sacred canon, as it was
settled in the third century before Christ, many a fable received,
and holds to the present day, its recognized place. After the
fall of Buddhism in India, and even during its decline, the Brah-
mans claimed the inheritance of their enemies, and used their pop-
ular fables for educational purposes. The best known of these
collections of fables in Sanskrit is the 'Pañkatantra,' literally the
Pentateuch or Pentamerone. From it and from other sources
another collection was made, well known to all Sanskrit scholars
by the name of 'Hitopadesa'; i. e. , Salutary Advice. Both these
books have been published in England and Germany, and there
are translations of them in English, German, French, and other
languages.


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10431
The first question which we have to answer refers to the
date of these collections; and dates in the history of Sanskrit
literature are always difficult points. Fortunately, as we shall
see, we can in this case fix the date of the 'Pañkatantra' at
least, by means of a translation into ancient Persian, which was
made about five hundred and fifty years after Christ, though
even then we can only prove that a collection somewhat like the
'Pañkatantra' must have existed at that time; but we cannot
refer the book, in exactly that form in which we now possess it,
to that distant period.
If we look for La Fontaine's fable in the Sanskrit stories of
'Pañkatantra,' we do not find, indeed, the milkmaid counting her
chickens before they are hatched, but we meet with the follow-
ing story:-
――――
"There lived in a certain place a Brâhman, whose name was
Svabhâvakripana, which means 'a born miser. ' He had collected a
quantity of rice by begging [this reminds us somewhat of the Bud-
dhist mendicants], and after having dined off it, he filled a pot with
what was left over. He hung the pot on a peg on the wall, placed
his couch beneath, and looking intently at it all the night, he thought,
'Ah, that pot is indeed brimful of rice. Now, if there should be a
famine, I should certainly make a hundred rupees by it. With this
I shall buy a couple of goats. They will have young ones every six
months, and thus I shall have a whole herd of goats. Then with the
goats I shall buy cows. As soon as they have calved, I shall sell
the calves. Then with the cows I shall buy buffaloes; with the buf-
faloes, mares. When the mares have foaled, I shall have plenty of
horses; and when I sell them, plenty of gold. With that gold I shall
get a house with four wings. And then a Brâhman will come to my
house, and will give me his beautiful daughter, with a large dowry.
She will have a son, and I shall call him Somasarman. When he is
old enough to be danced on his father's knee, I shall sit with a book
at the back of the stable, and while I am reading, the boy will see
me, jump from his mother's lap and run towards me to be danced on
my knee. He will come too near the horse's hoof, and full of anger,
I shall call to my wife, "Take the baby; take him! " But she, dis-
tracted by some domestic work, does not hear me.
Then I get up,
and give her such a kick with my foot. ' While he thought this, he
gave a kick with his foot, and broke the pot. All the rice fell over
him, and made him quite white. Therefore I say, 'He who makes
foolish plans for the future will be white all over, like the father of
Somasarman. › »


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10432
FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
(
I shall at once proceed to read you the same story, though
slightly modified, from the 'Hitopadesa. ' The Hitopadesa' pro-
fesses to be taken from the 'Pañkatantra' and some other books;
and in this case it would seem as if some other authority had
been followed. You will see, at all events, how much freedom
there was in telling the old story of the man who built castles in
the air.
"In the town of Devîkotta there lived a Brâhman of the name of
Devasarman. At the feast of the great equinox he received a plate
full of rice. He took it, went into a potter's shop, which was full of
crockery, and overcome by the heat, he lay down in a corner and
began to doze. In order to protect his plate of rice he kept his
stick in his hand, and began to think: 'Now, if I sell this plate of
rice, I shall receive ten cowries [kapardaka]. I shall then, on the
spot, buy pots and plates, and after having increased my capital
again and again, I shall buy and sell betel-nuts and dresses till I
become enormously rich. Then I shall marry four wives, and the
youngest and prettiest of the four I shall make a great pet of. Then
the other wives will be so angry, and begin to quarrel. But I shall
be in a great rage, and take a stick, and give them a good flogging. '
While he said this, he flung his stick away; the plate of rice was
smashed to pieces, and many of the pots in the shop were broken.
The potter, hearing the noise, ran into the shop, and when he saw
his pots broken, he gave the Brâhman a good scolding, and drove
him out of his shop. Therefore I say, 'He who rejoices over plans
for the future will come to grief, like the Brâhman who broke the
pots. "
In spite of the change of a Brahman into a milkmaid, no
one, I suppose, will doubt that we have here in the stories of
the 'Pañkatantra' and 'Hitopadesa' the first germs of La Fon-
taine's fable. But how did that fable travel all the way from
India to France? How did it doff its Sanskrit garment, and don
the light dress of modern French? How was the stupid Brah-
man born again as the brisk milkmaid, cotillon simple et souliers
plats?
It seems a startling case of longevity, that while languages
have changed, while works of art have perished, while empires
have risen and vanished again, this simple children's story
should have lived on, and maintained its place of honor and its
undisputed sway in every school-room of the East and every
nursery of the West. And yet it is a case of longevity so well


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FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
10433
attested that even the most skeptical would hardly venture to
question it. We have the passport of these stories viséd at every
place through which they have passed, and as far as I can judge,
parfaitement en règle. The story of the migration of these Indian
fables from East to West is indeed wonderful; more wonderful
and more instructive than many of the fables themselves. Will
it be believed that we, in this Christian country, and in the
nineteenth century, teach our children the first, the most import-
ant lessons of worldly wisdom,- nay, of a more than worldly wis-
dom, from books borrowed from Buddhists and Brahmans, from
heretics and idolaters; and that wise words spoken a thousand,-
nay, two thousand years ago, in a lonely village of India, like
precious seed scattered broadcast over the world, still bear fruit a
hundred and a thousand fold in that soil which is most precious
before God and man,-the soul of a child? No lawgiver, no
philosopher, has made his influence felt so widely, so deeply,
and so permanently as the author of these children's fables. But
who was he? We do not know. His name, like the name of
many a benefactor of the human race, is forgotten.
We only
know he was an Indian -a "nigger," as some people would call
him and that he lived at least two thousand years ago.
-
――――――
--
No doubt, when we first hear of the Indian origin of these
fables, and of their migration from India to Europe, we won-
der whether it can be so; but the fact is, that the story of this
Indo-European migration is not, like the migration of the Indo-
European languages, myths, and legends, a matter of theory,
but of history; and that it was never quite forgotten, either in
the East or in the West. Each translator, as he handed on his
treasure, seems to have been anxious to show how he came
by it.
Several writers who have treated of the origin and spreading
of Indo-European stories and fables, have mixed up two or three
questions which ought to be treated each on its own merits.
The first question is, whether the Aryans, when they broke
up their pro-ethnic community, carried away with them, not only
their common grammar and dictionary, but likewise some myths
and legends, which we find that Indians, Persians, Greeks,
Romans, Celts, Germans, Slaves, when they emerge into the
light of history, share in common? That certain deities occur
in India, Greece, and Germany, having the same names and the
same character, is a fact that can no longer be denied. That
XVIII-653


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FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
10434
certain heroes, too, known to Indians, Greeks, and Romans,
point to one and the same origin, both by their name and by
their history, is a fact by this time admitted by all whose admis-
sion is of real value. As heroes are in most cases gods in dis-
guise, there is nothing very startling in the fact that nations
who had worshiped the same gods should also have preserved
some common legend of demigods or heroes,-nay, even, in a
later phase of thought, of fairies and ghosts. The case however
becomes much more problematical when we ask whether stories
also- fables told with a decided moral purpose-formed part of
that earliest Aryan inheritance? This is still doubted by many
who have no doubts whatever as to common Aryan myths and
legends; and even those who, like myself, have tried to establish
by tentative arguments the existence of common Aryan fables,
dating from before the Aryan separation, have done so only by
showing a possible connection between ancient popular saws and
mythological ideas, capable of a moral application. To any one,
for instance, who knows how, in the poetical mythology of the
Aryan tribes, the golden splendor of the rising sun leads to con-
ceptions of the wealth of the Dawn in gold and jewels, and her
readiness to shower them upon her worshipers, the modern Ger-
man proverb "Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde »* seems to have
a kind of mythological ring; and the stories of benign fairies,
changing everything into gold, sound likewise like an echo from
the long-forgotten forest of our common Aryan home.
In order to gain a commanding view of the countries traversed
by these fables, let us take our position at Bagdad in the middle
of the eighth century, and watch from that central point the
movements of our literary caravan in its progress from the far
East to the far West. In the middle of the eighth century,
during the reign of the great Khalif Almansur, Abdallah ibn
Almokaffa wrote his famous collection of fables, the 'Kalila and
Dimnah,' which we still possess. The Arabic text of these fables
has been published by Sylvestre de Sacy, and there is an English
translation of it by Mr. Knatchbull, formerly professor of Arabic
at Oxford. Abdallah ibn Almokaffa was a Persian by birth, who,
after the fall of the Omeyyades, became a convert to Mohamme-
danism, and rose to high office at the court of the Khalifs. Being
*«The morning hour has gold in its mouth: »— "Early to bed and early
to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. »


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FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
10435
in possession of important secrets of State, he became dangerous
in the eyes of the Khalif Almansur, and was foully murdered. In
the preface, Abdallah ibn Almokaffa tells us that he translated
these fables from Pehlevi, the ancient language of Persia; and
that they had been translated into Pehlevi (about two hundred
years before his time) by Barzûyeh, the physician of Khosru
Nushirvan, the King of Persia, the contemporary of the Emperor
Justinian. The King of Persia had heard that there existed in
India a book full of wisdom; and he had commanded his Vezier,
Buzurjmihr, to find a man acquainted with the languages both of
Persia and India. The man chosen was Barzûyeh. He traveled
to India, got possession of the book, translated it into Persian,
and brought it back to the court of Khosru. Declining all rewards
beyond a dress of honor, he only stipulated that an account of
his own life and opinions should be added to the book.
account, probably written by himself, is extremely curious. It is
a kind of 'Religio Medici' of the sixth century; and shows us
a soul dissatisfied with traditions and formularies, striving after
truth, and finding rest only where many other seekers after truth
have found rest before and after him,-in a life devoted to alle-
viating the sufferings of mankind.
There is another account of the journey of this Persian
physician to India. It has the sanction of Firdúsi, in the great
Persian epic, the 'Shah Nâmeh'; and it is considered by some
as more original than the one just quoted. According to it, the
Persian physician read in a book that there existed in India
trees or herbs supplying a medicine with which the dead could
be restored to life. At the command of the King he went to
India in search of those trees and herbs; but after spending a
year in vain researches, he consulted some wise people on the
subject. They told him that the medicine of which he had read
as having the power to restore men to life, had to be understood
in a higher and more spiritual sense; and that what was really
meant by it were ancient books of wisdom preserved in India,
which imparted life to those who were dead in their folly and
sins. Thereupon the physician translated these books, and one
of them was the collection of fables,- the 'Kalila and Dimnah. '
It is possible that both these stories were later inventions;
the preface also by Ali, the son of Alshah Farési, in which the
names of Bidpai and King Dabshelim are mentioned for the


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10436
FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
first time, is of later date. But the fact remains that Abdallah
ibn Almokaffa, the author of the oldest Arabic collection of our
fables, translated them from Pehlevi, the language of Persia at
the time of Khosru Nushirvan; and that the Pehlevi text which
he translated was believed to be a translation of a book brought
from India in the middle of the sixth century. That Indian book
could not have been the 'Pañkatantra' as we now possess it,
but must have been a much larger collection of fables: for the
Arabic translation, the 'Kalilah and Dimnah,' contains eighteen
chapters instead of the five of the 'Pañkatantra'; and it is only
in the fifth, the seventh, the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth
chapters that we find the same stories which form the five books
of the Pañkatantra in the textus ornatior.
In this Arabic translation, the story of the Brahman and the
pot of rice runs as follows:-
"A religious man was in the habit of receiving every day from
the house of a merchant a certain quantity of butter [oil] and honey;
of which, having eaten as much as he wanted, he put the rest into a
jar, which he hung on a nail in a corner of the room, hoping that
the jar would in time be filled. Now as he was leaning back one
day on his couch, with a stick in his hand, and the jar suspended
over his head, he thought of the high price of butter and honey,
and said to himself, 'I will sell what is in the jar, and buy with the
money which I obtain for it ten goats; which producing each of them
a young one every five months, in addition to the produce of the
kids as soon as they begin to bear, it will not be long before there is
a great flock. ' He continued to make his calculations, and found that
he should at this rate, in the course of two years, have more than
four hundred goats. 'At the expiration of the term I will buy,' said
he, 'a hundred black cattle, in the proportion of a bull or a cow
for every four goats. I will then purchase land, and hire workmen
to plow it with the beasts, and put it into tillage; so that before
five years are over, I shall no doubt have realized a great fortune
by the sale of the milk which the cows will give, and of the produce
of my land. My next business will be to build a magnificent house,
and engage a number of servants, both male and female; and when
my establishment is completed, I will marry the handsomest woman I
can find, who, in due time becoming a mother, will present me with
an heir to my possessions, who, as he advances in age, shall receive
the best masters that can be procured; and if the progress which
he makes in learning is equal to my reasonable expectations, I shall


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FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
10437
be amply repaid for the pains and expense which I have bestowed
upon him; but if, on the other hand, he disappoints my hopes, the rod
which I have here shall be the instrument with which I will make
him feel the displeasure of a justly offended parent. ' At these words
he suddenly raised the hand which held the stick towards the jar,
and broke it, and the contents ran down upon his head and face. "
You will have observed the coincidences between the Arabic
and the Sanskrit versions; but also a considerable divergence,
particularly in the winding up of the story. The Brahman and
the holy man both build their castles in the air; but while the
former kicks his wife, the latter only chastises his son. How this
change came to pass we cannot tell. One might suppose that at
the time when the book was translated from Sanskrit into Peh-
levi, or from Pehlevi into Arabic, the Sanskrit story was exactly
like the Arabic story, and that it was changed afterwards. But
another explanation is equally admissible; viz. , that the Pehlevi
or the Arabic translator wished to avoid the offensive behavior of
the husband kicking his wife, and therefore substituted the son
as a more deserving object of castigation.
We have thus traced our story from Sanskrit to Pehlevi, and
from Pehlevi to Arabic; we have followed it in its migrations.
from the hermitages of Indian sages to the court of the kings.
of Persia, and from thence to the residence of the powerful Kha-
lifs at Bagdad. Let us recollect that the Khalif Almansur, for
whom the Arabic translation was made, was a contemporary of
Abderrahman, who ruled in Spain; and that both were but little
anterior to Harun al Rashid and Charlemagne. At that time,
therefore, the way was perfectly open for these Eastern fables,
after they had once reached Bagdad, to penetrate into the seats of
Western learning, and to spread to every part of the new empire
of Charlemagne. They may have done so, for all we know; but
nearly three hundred years pass
before these fables meet us
again in the literature of Europe. The Carlovingian empire had
fallen to pieces, Spain had been rescued from the Mohammedans,
William the Conqueror had landed in England, and the Crusades
had begun to turn the thoughts of Europe towards the East,
when, about the year 1080, we hear of a Jew of the name of Sym-
eon, the son of Seth, who translated these fables from Arabic into
Greek. He states in his preface that the book came originally
from India, that it was brought to King Chosroes of Persia, and
then translated into Arabic. .
The Greek text has been


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10438
FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
published, though very imperfectly, under the title of 'Stephan-
ites and Ichnelates. ' Here our fable is told as follows:
―――
"It is said that a beggar kept some honey and butter in a jar
close to where he slept. One night he thought thus within himself:
'I shall sell this honey and butter for however small a sum; with it
I shall buy ten goats, and these in five months will produce as many
again. In five years they will become four hundred. With them I
shall buy one hundred cows, and with them I shall cultivate some
land. And what with their calves and the harvests, I shall become
rich in five years, and build a house with four wings, ornamented
with gold, and buy all kinds of servants and marry a wife. She will
give me a child, and I shall call him Beauty. It will be a boy, and
I shall educate him properly; and if I see him lazy, I shall give him
such a flogging with this stick! ' With these words he took a stick
that was near him, struck the jar, and broke it, so that the honey
and milk ran down on his beard. "
This Greek translation might, no doubt, have reached La Fon-
taine; but as the French poet was not a great scholar, least of
all a reader of Greek MSS. , and as the fables of Symeon Seth
were not published till 1697, we must look for other channels
through which the old fable was carried along from East to
West.
The fact is, these fables had found several other channels,
through which, as early as the thirteenth century, they reached
the literary market of Europe, and became familiar as household
words, at least among the higher and educated classes.
But Perrette with the milk-pail has not yet arrived at the
end of her journey.
Remember that in all our wander-
ings we have not yet found the milkmaid, but only the Brah-
man or the religious man. What we want to know is, who first
brought about this metamorphosis.
•
•
No doubt La Fontaine was quite the man to seize on any
jewel which was contained in the Oriental fables, to remove the
cumbersome and foreign-looking setting, and then to place the
principal figure in that pretty frame in which most of us have
first become acquainted with it. But in this case the charmer's
wand did not belong to La Fontaine, but to some forgotten
worthy, whose very name it will be difficult to fix upon with
certainty.
We have as yet traced three streams only, all starting from
the Arabic translation of Abdallah ibn Almokaffa,-one in the


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FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
10439
eleventh, another in the twelfth, a third in the thirteenth cen-
tury,- all reaching Europe, some touching the very steps of the
throne of Louis XIV. , yet none of them carrying the leaf which
contained the story of Perrette,' or of the Brahman,' to the
threshold of La Fontaine's home. We must therefore try again.
After the conquest of Spain by the Mohammedans, Arabic
literature had found a new home in Western Europe; and among
the numerous works translated from Arabic into Latin or Spanish,
we find towards the end of the thirteenth century (1289) a Span-
ish translation of our fables, called 'Calila é Dymna. ' In this
the name of the philosopher is changed from Bidpai to Bundobel.
This, or another translation from Arabic, was turned into Latin
verse by Raimond de Beziers in 1313 (not published).
Lastly, we find in the same century another translation from
Arabic straight into Latin verse, by Baldo, which became known
under the name of 'Esopus Alter. '
From these frequent translations, and translations of transla-
tions, in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, we see
quite clearly that these Indian fables were extremely popular,
and were in fact more widely read in Europe than the Bible, or
any other book. They were not only read in translations, but
having been introduced into sermons, homilies, and works on
morality, they were improved upon, acclimatized, localized, till at
last it is almost impossible to recognize their Oriental features
under their homely disguises.
I shall give you one instance only.
Rabelais, in his 'Gargantua,' gives a long description of how
a man might conquer the whole world. At the end of this dia-
logue, which was meant as a satire on Charles V. , we read:
-
"There was here present at that time an old gentleman well expe-
rienced in the wars,- a stern soldier, and who had been in many
great hazards, - named Echephron, who, hearing this discourse, said:
'J'ay grand peur que toute ceste entreprise sera semblable à la farce
du pot au laict duquel un cordavanier se faisoit riche par resverie,
puis le pot cassé, n'eut de quoy disner. »» (I fear me that this great
undertaking will turn out like the farce of the pot of milk, which
made the shoemaker rich in imagination till he broke the pot, and
had to go without his dinner. )
This is clearly our story; only the Brahman has as yet been
changed into a shoemaker only, and the pot of rice or the jar


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10440
FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
of butter and honey into a pitcher of milk. Fortunately, we can
make at least one step further, a step of about two centuries.
This step backwards brings us to the thirteenth century, and
there we find our old Indian friend again, and this time really
changed into a milkmaid The book I refer to is written in
Latin, and is called 'Dialogus Creaturarum optime moralizatus';
in English, the 'Dialogue of Creatures Moralized. ' It was a
book intended to teach the principles of Christian morality by
examples taken from ancient fables. It was evidently a most
successful book, and was translated into several modern lan-
guages. There is an old translation of it in English, first printed
by Rastell, and afterwards reprinted in 1816. I shall read you
from it the fable in which, as far as I can find, the milkmaid
appears for the first time on the stage, surrounded already by
much of that scenery which, four hundred years later, received
its last touches at the hand of La Fontaine.
"DIALOGO C. - For as it is but madnesse to trust to moche in
surete, so it is but foly to hope to moche of vanyteys, for vayne be
all erthly thinges longynge to men, as sayth Davyd, Psal.