374 The OhdrvdJca System of Philosophy. [No. 4, 



pears as a demon in the Mahabharata, and he is there described as 

 killed by the curses of some Brahmans of Yudhishthira's party. 



Some authorities say that Brihaspati taught his doctrines to his 

 disciple Charvaka, but if we may judge by the occasional quotations, 

 the so-called Brihaspati-s'astra must have been from ancient times 

 the text-book of the sect. ISTo copy is now known to exist,* but we 

 have quite enough extant in the form of quotations to enable us to 

 judge of the character of the work. Its author, like Lucretius among 

 the Romans or Omar Khayyam among the Persians, was strong to 

 overthrow, — he could ridicule the absurdities of superstition, but he 

 was blind to the religious instincts which underlie them, — and hence 

 they are, all alike, men 



— when faith had fall'n asleep, 

 Who heard a voice ' believe no more,' 

 And heard an ever-breaking shore 

 That tumbled in the godless deep. 



Of course if we look at these blind gropings of bewildered humanity 

 simply in themselves, they can have nothing to teach or even interest 

 us ; but it is not so, if we consider them in relation to the history of 

 the human mind. The Charvaka doctrines, and in fact, all such 

 purely negative systems, may be regarded from three separate points 

 of view, and it is as seen under these several aspects that they present 

 such widely varying characters. If we only look at them so far as 

 they deny the deepest instincts of our nature, we can but turn from 

 them in disgust and horror, — the belief in God and in the soul's immor- 

 tality are not the results of logical inference, but the very postulates 

 of human thought, and we deny our own humanity if we choose to 

 question them. Again, so far as these sceptical systems only uttered 

 a protest against the superstitions of their age, we may regard them 

 not only with pity but with mournful interest. But so far as they 

 express the negative side of philosophy, they may even claim our 

 most serious attention, for they help us to remember those natural 

 limitations and defects of the human mind, which we are so apt to 

 forget in the excitement of new discoveries. Are they not in fact 



* Since writing this paper we have received the third part of Vol. XIX. of the 

 Royal Asiatic Society's journal, which contains a paper by Mr. Muir on the 

 fragments of Brihaspati as compared with similar passages in the Ramayana 

 and Vishnu Purana. He there states that Dr. Hall had in vain searched for any 

 copy of these Barhaspatya S'lokas. We may well despair of their being ever 

 found, if even the discoverer of the Bharatiya S'astra has failed to find any trace. 



