RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT INDIA 477 



indeed we may say that, for many stages of the way across the vast 

 historical tracts, even now a gleam of law and order rewards the 

 patient observation of the scientist and the intuition of the genius. 

 It is an order whose constant fusion with its opposite, with what is 

 plainly mere chance and inexplicable, is one of the leading char- 

 acteristics of historical development. 



The comparative study of languages and literatures, of judicial 

 and social life, proves that it is possible to find many a trace of law 

 and order. Why should it not prove to be equally true of the history 

 of religions? Like helps to understand like from east to west. It 

 aids in recognizing the hidden traces, in reconstructing the fragments, 

 just as it is possible for a reader who is acquainted with a large 

 number of careers and mental developments to construct a whole 

 life from fragmentary biographical data. Such comparisons likewise 

 help us particularly to discover the principal active causes behind 

 the facts themselves. The similarities as well as the dissimilar- 

 ities are helpful. Our view broadens so as to include the whole 

 wealth of possibilities. The single fact takes its rightful place by 

 showing itself to be one variety among others. We learn to raise 

 the question, even solve it, perhaps, as to what causes have given each 

 fact its peculiar characteristics. 



Whoever pursues such problems will find Indian traditions espe- 

 cially valuable for much that is included under the head of religious 

 thought and life. They are wonderfully preserved in true Indian 

 vastness. It is a primeval forest through which, however, the stead- 

 fast zeal of the philologian has succeeded in making paths. The 

 oldest traditions go back to a very remote past; they appear scarcely 

 younger than the Indian people themselves. Moreover, tradition, 

 ever communicative and frank, helps us to trace the long development 

 through thousands and thousands of years. We believe we see in 

 the texts before our eyes how their conception of nature and the 

 world, reflected in their religion, develops step by step. We see how 

 the art of presenting problems which creates this knowledge, how 

 the direct or the indirect relation of the knower to his knowledge 

 passes through one phase after another. Above all we hear what 

 needs, hopes, and longings are expressed one after another in rational 

 order. Particularly the older stadia of this development lie wonder- 

 fully clear before us; namely, the progress from the half-naive, half- 

 artful religious culfr of the Veda to the deep speculations of the 

 Upanishads, then to the religion of salvation of the Buddha. This 

 process, hardly influenced at all from without, has been able to go on 

 according to its inherent law. Why should it not help us to under- 

 stand the parallel developments in the West in the sense that I have 

 designated? The student learns at every step, I may say, that this 

 is not a deceptive hope. For instance, let us consider the sacrifice, 



