256 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y 



II. The Unity of the Passion-Play 



To form a mental picture of the universe and its 

 history as a connected whole has been the aim of man 

 from the earliest dawn of intellect. His problem has 

 ever been : How am I related to the past, to the future, 

 to the wide expanse of surrounding nature ? He has 

 laboured in many ages, in many ways to find a unity 

 in history, and a unity in natural phenomena. In our 

 own day we find a light, by no means an all-penetrating 

 daylight, yet a steady search-light, in the principle of 

 evolution. Man's conduct no longer regarded as the 

 axis of the universe, the source of unity in all creation, 

 we turn to science rather than to religion to find the 

 unity in the world-drama. In the Middle Ages Ptolemaic 

 conceptions were still supreme ; the earth was the centre 

 of the universe, man was the centre of the earth ; round 

 his wants all physical nature centred, and for his purposes 

 the universe existed. But for man then, as now, the vital 

 question was conduct; on conduct depended the very sur- 

 vival of social groups, and the gregarious instinct had early 

 emphasised, with the strong religious sanctions embraced 

 in such terms as sin and righteousness, the fundamental 

 features of social and anti-social behaviour. Thus in the 

 Middle Ages men sought the unity of the world and its 

 history in the problem of man's conduct. The current 

 religion widely developed from the scanty formulae of 

 original Christianity gave an answer. The unity of the 

 world-drama lies in the struggle of man against sin, in his 

 fall and his redemption, in the punishment of the wicked 



