42 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[December 1, 1886. 



and ;ilso the venom in which the aiTOW tips were dipped, 

 belonged wholly and solely to another. 



A CORRESPONDENT calls my attention to the name " Krishna 

 Jezeus." He says that he has come across the epithet Jezeus 

 as ajjplied to Krishna in several modern treatises, but it is not 

 a correct transliteration of anything possible in Sanscrit or 

 in any of the Dravidian languages of South India. He has 

 failed to find an}' original authority for the name. Like my 

 correspondent, I am unable to understand the modern use 

 of this epithet, which I have used as I found it, supposing 

 it might bo a form of one of " the thousand names of Krishna " 

 — with some of which I am not familiar. 1 noticed its 

 want of resemblance to the better-known names, most of 



■which end with the vowels " a," 



and " i,' as Damodara, 



Madhava, and Madhuripu, Achyuta, Kes'ava, Govinda, 

 HrisLikes'a, Trivikrama, Viisudeva, Padnanabbi, &c., &c. 

 Knowing absolutely nothing as to the real source of the 

 epithet, but recognising it as an iaipossibility in connection 

 with any Indian language, I venture the suggestion that it 

 may have been borrowed from some ancient Latin writing, 

 in which, because of the close resemblance between the story 

 of Krishna (the repi-esentative during his life on earth of 

 Vishnu, the second person of the Indian Trinity) and that of 

 Christ, Krishna is called Jezeus ; in other words, it may be 

 a barbarous attempt to find some adjective other than Jesuit 

 which would represent association with, or resemblance to, 

 Jesus — so that Krishna Jezeus would signify the Jesus-like 

 Krishna. But I should say the chances must be heavy 

 against this guess being correct. 



* * * 

 A CORRESPONDENT at Bristol has addressed to me a rather 

 remarkable letter, the bearing of which may perhaps be 

 more obvious to some of my readers here than it is to myself. 

 He asks (1) whether Shakespeare was not a grander creation 

 than a myriad suns ? (2) whether the New Testament is 

 not greater than Shakespeare? and (3), ''as to miracles," 

 whether 1 have never heard that warts have been miracu. 

 lously cured (citing a case in which a clergyman was con- 

 verted from the errors of his ways (in regard to warts) by 

 the success of " charms " devised by a drunken and disreput- 

 able member of his flock). Not in the least knowing what 

 he (or she) may be aiming at in applying the Socratic method 

 with these three questions, I draw my bow at a venture in 

 demanding, by way of reply, (1) whether Euclid was not a 

 gi'ander creation than the solar system 1 (2) whether a 

 stained window by Burne Jones is not greater than Homer'! 

 and (3) as to evolution, whether my correspondent has never 

 heard that Pat's caubeen has been evolved from the cocked 

 hat of the seventeenth century 1 I trust this may be of 

 use to my correspondent, but I cannot tell ; I hope so, I am 

 sure. 



* * * 



A CORRESPONDENT asks whether he may, " with a mind 

 fresh from any preconceived ideas, and therefore unpledged 

 to any particular theory," suggest that, owing to the greater 

 mass of the eaiih, the lighter matter, " such as oxygen and 

 hydrogen," &c., would go to the earth while tlie denser 

 matter would be all that the moon could collect 1 One may 

 suggest anything — especially with a mind fresh from any 

 bewildering study of previous researches and inquiries. But 

 this particular theoiy, that if two neighbouring bodies of 

 diflfei'ent mass were gathering up material the larger would 

 sift out the lighter elements, leaving the smaller to collect the 

 denser, will really not do. 



* * * 



I DO not undertake to consider here all such ideas as may 

 be propounded in letters ; but it seemed to me worth while 



to notice that the state of unpledged freshness, which my 

 correspondent seems to think favourable to the conception 

 of sound ideas has never yet proved trustworthy. So one 

 has ever discovered any new truth of importance wlio lias not 

 carefully mastered pre-existing knov^lcdge of the department 

 of science to loliicli the truth belongs. 



* * * 



A REMARKABLE passage from a paper called The Christian 

 has been sent me for my opinion. It says that though there 

 was a " fine tone of candid appreciation of the evolutionary 

 philosophy " at the Birmingham me3ting of the British 

 Association, " there was a clear divergence from its extreme 

 conclusions." It proceeds to say of certain remarks uttered 

 by the President of the Anthi-opological Section, that " they 

 go far to sustain the language of Sir William Dawson in a 

 paper publi-shed this year, that the ordinary received 

 chronology of about four or five thousand years for the post- 

 diluvian ])eriod, and two thousand years or a little more for 

 the antediluvian period will exhaust all the time tliat 

 geology can allow for the possible existence of man." I am 

 asked what I suppose would be the opinion of science on 

 this amazing statement, and whether Sir W. Dawson is a 

 high authority on such matters. 



* * * 



It would be idle to reason about a statement which flatly 

 contradicts everything that pala-ontology, biology, anthro- 

 pology, ethnology, philology, archaeology, and associated 

 sciences say on the subject of the antiquity of man. No 

 one, however, who has read what Sir W. Dawson has 

 written about evolution can wonder at anything he may 

 have .said "this year" on that particular subject. At 

 Birmingham, I believe, he kept within his own ground, 

 and though geologists difler widely from much that he said 

 about the Atlantic basin, while events closelj' following 

 knocked incontinently on the head the geological opinions 

 he had most confidently expressed, his views on matters 

 .simply geological are alwaj's worth considering. But a man 

 may be .skilful in certain dei)artments of geology, who 

 cannot or will not grasp the uipaning of any fkcts outside, 

 and every one who knows Sir W. Dawson's record must be 

 well assured that if he .saw directly before him evidence 

 which would be likely to make the views of Darwin seem 

 acceptable to him, he would go miles round rather than 

 continue on his direct way. 



* * * 



Yet I find it after all difiicult to believe that even Sir W. 

 Dawson — bigoted though he is in his hatred of Darwinism — • 

 would have said what the Christian attril)utes to him. 

 Nobody can know much better than he can (if he will) that 

 (1) pahi'ontology has proved the existence of man for at 

 least 100,000 years; (2) biology shows that the race of man 

 as it exists now could not possibly have arisen from the 

 in-and-in breeding of the descendants of two persons four or 

 five thousand ye;irs ago (without a series of miracles 

 extending over many generations) ; (3) anthropology and 

 ethnology emphasise this argument by the evidence they 

 supply as to the varieties existing in the human race and 

 among diflTerent nations ; (4) philology ennbles us to 

 recognise periods many times longer than the four or five 

 thousand years spoken of, as necessary for the development 

 of the existing types of language ; (.5) arclueology indicates 

 the existence of races in widely separated parts of the earth, 

 who were .so numerous (to say nothing of their advance in 

 civilisation) at a period separated by but a few hundred 

 years from the time assigned to the flood, that the idea of 

 their being all descended from two persons within that time 

 is simply childish ; and (6) history shows us the great 

 nations of old existing in their millions when, were that 



