H EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 77 



Indian thought set out from ground common to 

 both, diverge widely, develop under very different 

 physical and moral conditions, and finally converge 

 to practically the same end. 



The Vedas and the Homeric epos set before us 

 a world of rich and vigorous life, full of joyous 

 fighting men 



That ever with a frolic welcome took 

 The thunder and the sunshine .... 



and who were ready to brave the very Gods them- 

 selves when their blood was up. A few centuries 

 pass away, and under the influence of civilization 

 the descendants of these men are ' sicklied o'er 

 with the pale cast of thought ' — frank pessimists, 

 or, at best, make-believe optimists. The courage 

 of the warlike stock may be as hardly tried as 

 before, perhaps more hardly, but the enemy is 

 self The hero has become a monk. The man of 

 action is replaced by the quietist, whose highest 

 aspiration is to be the passive instrument of the 

 divine Keason. By the Tiber, as by the Ganges, 

 ethical man admits that the cosmos is too strong 

 for him ; and, destroying every bond which ties 

 him to it by ascetic discipline, he seeks salvation 

 in absolute renunciation.^^ 



Modern thought is making a fresh start from 

 the base whence Indian and Greek philosophy set 

 out ; and, the human mind being very much what 



