APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 37 



have grown out of those of Greece and Rome not 

 by favour of, but in the teeth of, the fundamental 

 teachings of early Christianity, to which science, 

 art, and any serious occupation with the things of 

 this world, were alike despicable. 



All that is best in the ethics of the modern 

 world, in so far as it has not grown put of Greek 

 thought, or Barbarian manhood, is the direct develop- 

 ment of the ethics of old Israel. There is no code of 

 legislation, ancient or modern, at once so just and so 

 merciful, so tender to the weak and poor, as the 

 Jewish law ; and, if the Gospels are to be trusted, 

 Jesus of Nazareth himself declared that he taught 

 nothing but that which lay implicitly, or explicitly, 

 in the religious and ethical system of his people. 



The first-recorded judicial murder of a scientific 

 thinker was compassed and effected, not by a despot, 

 nor by priests, but was brought about by eloquent 

 demagogues, to whom, of all men, thorough search- 

 ings of the intellect are most dangerous and therefore 

 most hateful. 



Platonic philosophy is probably the grandest 

 example of the unscientific use of the imagination 

 extant ; and it would be hard to estimate the amount 

 of detriment to clear thinking effected, directly and 

 indirectly, by the theory of ideas, on the one hand, 

 and by the unfortunate doctrine of the baseness of 

 matter, on the other. 



