History of Religious Evolution 737 



be judged by the sum-total of their results, good, bad, and 

 indifferent. 



First, it cannot be too strongly emphasized that to many 

 of the more inquiring and thoughtful minds the noblest side 

 of the teachings of Zarathushtra, of Moses, of Gautama, of 

 the earlier Greek philosophers, and many others of whom 

 we now have only vague records, had appealed powerfully, 

 and unquestionably influenced their views and writings. Soc- 

 rates, Plato, Aristotle, and their numerous disciples had flour- 

 ished, taught, and written from 500 B. C. to the time of Christ's 

 •appearance. Some even of them had turned to Zoroastri- 

 anism, some to Mithraism, some as did Luke, "the beloved 

 physician" of later date, had turned to Judaism. 



By action and reaction of mind against mind; by perusal 

 of the precious manuscripts of the philosophers; by quiet 

 individual meditation on all the changing events — often cruel, 

 sensual, and degrading, interspersed with kind, happy, and 

 elevating — that made up the life-history of mankind at that 

 day; by the travels and teachings of Iranian, of Aryan, and 

 Semitic philosophers, students, merchants, and soldiery, great 

 human proenvironal aspirations and even actions began to 

 agitate mankind as never before probably in the world's his- 

 tory. The Alexandrian, the Seleucid, the Ptolemaic, and the 

 Roman wars had often centered in or round Palestine, and 

 had made it the meeting place for the views and customs of 

 the then civilized world. 



Men with minds equal to the best of today were coni])aring 

 every biotic, cognitic, cogitic, and spiritic stimulus that reached 

 them, were compounding some of these into cumulated result- 

 ants, which when tried and so j)ut to the test were rejected. 

 They compounded others into new resultants which when 

 put to the test of life-action were found to be hopeful and 

 were adopted. So, gradually, guiding princi])les of doctrine, 

 of word, and of action were all summated into such great 

 cogitic and spiritic proenvironal works as Aristotle's later 

 biological, psychological, and religious writings. For the 

 political, moral, and religious writings of Plato and Aristotle 



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