50 THE GREATEST ILLUSION 



and New Testaments. They knew little of the moral heights 

 attained by ancient civilizations, or of the lofty moral precepts 

 of religions founded centuries before Christianity. Concen- 

 trating their attention on one corner of the world and one 

 short section of time, they ignored the first glimmerings of 

 morality in animal life, the slow and fitful broadening of the 

 dawn among primitive human societies, and the clearer light 

 towards which nation after nation pressed in its evolution. 

 Indeed, few of them sought to penetrate behind the assump- 

 tion that true morality was created by Christianity. They 

 accepted it as an axiom. 



The most effective way to test an assumption is to assume 

 it true, and then measure the logical results with the gauge 

 of fact. If the Christian ethic were indeed a revelation, one 

 would have no difficulty in discovering the unique element 

 which sets it apart. Again, the adoption of this precious 

 novelty by nation after nation would be sure to bring about 

 a moral elevation which in itself might be accepted as a proof 

 of the Christian assumption. Does either the structure or the 

 fruit of Christianity bear this out? 



It is not a very laborious matter to compare the moral 

 teaching of the Gospels with that of Jewish and Pagan 

 writers, and with the ethics of earlier religions. But it is an 

 exceedingly laborious matter to discover any Gospel precept 

 which is without one or more parallels from the days when 

 the world lay in darkness. Mr. McCabe has collected, in his 

 Sources of the Morality of the Gospels, a large number of 

 parallels relating to the leading moral doctrines of Chris- 

 tianity ; further parallels in Buddhism, Confucianism, and 

 other ancient religions may be traced with the aid of Mr. 

 Gorham's Ethics of the Great Religions. The deeper one 

 penetrates towards the spiritual centres of ancient civiliza- 

 tions, the higher seem the heights to which pre-Christian 

 saints and sages reached. Every now and then one is startled 

 to come upon a feature which was supposed to be a landmark 

 erected by Christianity. Just as the dogmas and rites of 

 Christianity find their forerunners in heathen religions, so 

 the ethical ideals associated more or less closely with these 

 dogmas and rites are legacies from earlier ages. Even the 

 Beatitudes those brightest blossoms on Christian soil can 

 be traced to former growths, from which, indeed, they show 

 a certain degeneracy. Each " Blessed " is accompanied by 

 its reward a partnership which the Stoic would have looked 

 upon as immoral. 



