3. The World of Humanity

Thus far, our contemplation of the religious world-order has resulted in evincing certain gleams of intelligence and fragments of thought incident upon those occasional manifestations of Absolute Life which occur in exalted thinking and living. Insight has thus been obtained, but system is still lacking, and it is with the hope of reducing these scattered elements to a scheme of philosophic thinking that we take up the problem of humanity. In itself, this is a question the meaning and merit of which have only begun to dawn upon us, and the solution of the humanityproblem seems to be impossible apart from an ontological principle. Man must be invested with world-significance, and our thought must advance beyond the metaphysics of nature to the metaphysics of humanity. Since we have already found it possible to construct the character of religion without having recourse to the intellectualism ordinarily expressed in logic and ethics, we need not hesitate to pursue the system of humanism which has been implied throughout this entire consideration of the religious precinct. Certain it is that religion cannot be contained in nature, and when man himself endeavours to provide a realm for his faith, the substance of things hoped for, he must abandon the ego, shun the mere aggregate, and postulate the world of humanity. Genius in the individual outtops mankind in general, because it reveals new qualities in the soul, and the genius of humanity lifts man out of time and place.

1. When one considers the history of the problem, he discovers that the idea of man's unitary nature is not primitive, but secondary, consisting of a most advanced philosophy. In the religious consciousness, the notion of humanity does not appear until history has brought to light the allied ideas of nature and Deity, and in universal religion the world-whole, the unity of God, and the order of humanity are principles which stand upon an equal

footing. The practical maxim of non-resentment, which invariably accompanies world religions, signifies something more than a civilization which has abandoned savagery; it indicates a culture which lives and moves in the august idea that humanity is universal and absolute, for which reason all retaliation is blind and in vain. It is within such a metaphysical realm that the precinct of religion is discovered, and it is only as our thought postulates an order of relations that its problems can be explained. At last, man looks himself in the face and his humanity inspires him to affirm his soul over against the world of nature. Since the idea of humanity is so essential to spiritual life, the various steps which philosophy has taken to reach the universal in man are worthy of consideration.

In the Oriental world, where the idea of Deity seems ever to mask the consciousness of man's humanity, the world of mankind does not fail to receive recognition. This is in reality the subject which the Sankhya philosophy pursues in its doctrines of Tamas-guna, Rajas-guna, Sattvaguna. These Gunas are qualities of ignorance, passion, and illumination respectively, which act as so many cords to bind man down to certain degrees of existence. Instead of being mere physical qualities or psychical temperaments, the Gunas constitute Prakriti, which is the one substance of the world, and, in Aphorism sixty-one, Kapila, who founded the school, declares: "Prakriti is the state of equipoise of goodness, passion, and markness." From another point of view, namely, that of emanation, the Gnostics distinguished pneumatical, psychical, and hylical men. The intellectualism of Vedanta does not forbid the formulation of a humanistic doctrine, because the objective Self in which man really lives consists of a realm in which all individuals participate, and it is in the consciousness of this that the devotee refrains from hate and retaliation. Buddhism is everywhere invested with living humanitarianism and Karma and Nirvana, the be-all and end-all of human existence in a system which believes

neither in God, nor the world, nor the individual soul, and which can be interpreted only upon the basis of a world of humanity.

In the Occidental world, which made a beginning in Paganism and then renewed its efforts in Christianity, there arises the consciousness of humanity. Among Greek poets and philosophers, the terminology of humanity is taken up and the way prepared for a direct presentation of the problem. The word piλav@pwría occurs in Æschylus' Prometheus, where it indicates the attitude of love which the gods sustain toward men, and it was because of his ardent philanthropy that Prometheus was punished. In the same exalted sense we find the term employed by Plato, while Aristotle, as also Polybius, adds to it the cognate word συμπάθεια. Diogenes Laertius refers to the common law of mankind and distinguishes its peculiarly human quality from common nature. As the practical term philanthropy comes from these Greek writers, the Latin, through Cornificius and Cicero, furnishes us with the word "humanitas." So reassuring is the testimony of language that we pursue the career of the humanistic ideal throughout the development of modern culture.

As early as the days of Notker, German thought employed the equivalent of the term "Gesellschaft," while, later, Eckhart introduces the words "menscheit" and "miteliden." The discovery of humanity belongs properly to Vico, who employs historical considerations to the end of creating a new view of mankind represented as a "Scienza Nuova." The constructive portion of Vico's work consists of fundamental distinctions, by way of grades, in the history of humanity. Herein are revealed three natures: the poetical, the heroic, the moral; three kinds of language: divine, heroic, rational; three forms of government: theocratic, aristocratic, democratic; three stages of jurisprudence mystical, heroic, human. The principles which guide humanity involve the ideas of God and immortality, while the scheme which embraces the ensemble

of humanity leads Vico to say, the "Scienza Nuova is an historical demonstration of Providence." Schiller made the idea of humanity the central theme in his system of culture, where it stands midway between the Goethean model of sense and the Kantian maxim of duty, and unites grace, the expression of a noble soul, with dignity, the expression of a lofty mind. The æsthetic education of humanity is possessed of a means by which mankind may pass from the low plane of mere sense to the higher one of sheer virtue. It will appear, then, that Schiller indicates a threefold scheme of humanity and history whereby he assumes a position by the side of Vico, while both of them complete the scheme suggested by the Sankhyan and Gnostic doctrines of the triple cord which binds humanity to its several stations.

Having thus glanced at the steps which philosophy has taken in its attempt to indicate the meaning of mankind, we may now turn from this historical reference to note how distinct are antique and modern ideals of humanity. With the ancient, the humanity of man related to himself or his superior nature, and was represented in a perpendicular fashion which emphasized the difference between higher and lower. The spirit of humanism and the study of the humanities are thus in keeping with the classic ideal, the manifest aim of which was to separate man from the brute, as well as the civilized man from the barbarian, while it signally failed to establish any rational relation of humanity between individual and individual. The modern conception here appears in striking contrast, when it is asserted that, ethically, all souls are equal before God, while, practically, they evince this equality in the presence of law. Added to this doctrine of rights is the moral principle which declares that man has a duty toward others, in the performance of which he reveals the virtue of benevolence and the attitude of altruism. In contrast with the ancient view, modernism is thoroughly horizontal and everywhere manifests the tendency to put all men

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upon a common level. The ideal is sympathy, not superiority. At the same time, the modern indulges in a thought which is even more alien to the sufficient and aristocratic conception of Paganism; this is the evolutionary scheme which unites the various degrees of social progress, from savagery to civilization, in the programme of social evolution, and even goes so far as to advance the theory that mankind is descended from the animals. This may suggest an altruistic ideal, but it does not enhance the alleged aristocracy of the human species, and no Greek could have accepted an hypothesis which lowers culture to nature, and degrades humanity to animality. These are present-day dilemmas.

2. A sufficient doctrine of humanity seems to lurk in a view which combines the superior and aristocratic in antiquity with the sympathetic and altruistic in modernity. That which is implied by such a combination is, not merely some higher order of individuality or a more appreciative attitude toward others, but a world of humanity, an idea which completes the doctrine of man, just as it is itself fulfilled by the idea of the Godhead. The endeavour to realize man involves considerations drawn from the history of humanity, which cannot be understood until its ontological significance is made out; while the desire to find God cannot be satisfied by magnifying the individual by an infinite number of diameters, but must first be permitted to seek nourishment from the idea of the totality of spiritual life in mankind. From this minor metaphysics of man, the path to the major metaphysics of God is not difficult to find. When man is known as one who participates in the world of absolute humanity, his relation to his fellows will appear in a manner at once engaging and convincing, for each will look upon the other as a mirror of the one spiritual life, whence it will follow that all men possess the aristocracy of humanity for which reason sympathy must be extended toward them.

The ontological view of mankind involves views which