738 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



are in no sense national. They are strivings after eternal 

 human verities, and so have an international scope and ap- 

 plicability. 



When Christ appeared then as a teacher, the Persian, Greek, 

 Hebrew, and Egyptian religious systems had all given rise 

 to blended proenvironal views that could not be termed the 

 pure product of any one teacher, but which waited for some 

 new and synthesizing mind to knit together all that was best 

 in them into a unified whole. 



As to Christ's ancestry, immediate parentage, and educa- 

 tion we need not attempt to speak, for of these we are wholly 

 ignorant, except for some entirely vague, at times contra- 

 dictory, in part unnatural, statements. But the indications 

 all point to his having had a mind that was keen, analytic, 

 synthetic, judicial, calm, above all that was eminently moral 

 and spiritual in tendency, with the cognitic and biotic powers 

 or inclinations kept thereby in constant balance and even 

 check. 



In all of these respects, he seems most nearly to have ap- 

 proached Zarathushtra, while his intense love for the highest 

 social — and so moral — as well as spiritual life of man far ex- 

 celled that of any amongst the earlier teachers, so far at least 

 as we have exact information. He was reared as a Hebrew 

 in a Galilean home, and amid men who were renowned for 

 patriotism and valor. He had synagogue advantages and 

 instruction, but he also possessed — as all his teaching showed 

 — an activ^e independent and original mind that was largely 

 molded, not by the Hebrew writings alone, but even more 

 by .the higher monotheistic and idealistic teachings of Zara- 

 thushtra, of Gautama, of Plato, and of xVristotle. 



These teachings were equal to, or higher in aspiration than, 

 much of Old Testament writing; they breathed a more expan- 

 sive humanitarian and regenerating tone; they suggested not 

 merely national but human cooperation, sympathy, and regard. 



No matter how it is to be explained, Christ had evidently 

 ])ecome closely conversant with the best thought of the age 

 during which he lived; had reflected deeply on all of the prob- 



