108 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS n 



capacity of the Greek mind — its power of Hellenizing 

 whatever it touched — has here worked so effectually, 

 that, so far as I can learn, no indubitable traces of 

 such extraneous contributions are now allowed to exist 

 by the most authoritative historians of Philosophy. 

 Nevertheless, I think it must be admitted that the 

 coincidences between the Heracleito-stoical doctrines 

 and those of the older Hindu philosophy are 

 extremely remarkable. In both, the cosmos pursues 

 an eternal succession of cyclical changes. The great 

 year, answering to the Kalpa, covers an entire cycle 

 from the origin of the universe as a fluid to its 

 dissolution in fire — " Humor initium, ignis exitus 

 mundi," as Seneca has it. In both systems, there is 

 immanent in the cosmos a source of energy, Brahma, 

 or the Logos, which works according to fixed laws. 

 The individual soul is an efilux of this world-spirit, 

 and returns to it. Perfection is attainable only by 

 individual effort, through ascetic discipline, and is 

 rather a state of painlessness than of happiness ; if 

 indeed it can be said to be a state of anything, save 

 the negation of perturbing emotion. The hatchment 

 motto " In Coelo Quies " would serve both Hindu and 

 Stoic ; and absolute quiet is not easily distinguishable 

 from annihilation. 



Zoroasterism, which, geographically, occupies a 

 position intermediate between Hellenism and 

 Hinduism, agrees with the latter in recognizing the 

 essential evil of the cosmos ; but differs from both in 

 its intensely anthropomorphic personification of the 

 two antagonistic principles, to the one of which it 

 ascribes all the good ; and, to the other, all the evil. 



