28   HISTORIC GROWTH OF MAN.

PHASES OF LIFE IN INDIA.   29

round the earth, or the earth that revolved on its own axis.

A careful analysis will show that in any case the so-called " illusion of the senses " is really a mistake of the judgment or reason. We have given a little space to this subject here because the validity of sensations and of human consciousness lies at the basis of all certain knowledge, both physical and spiritual. If our physical senses deceive us, then our spiritual senses do the same, and to the same extent.

The whole superstructure of Brahminism and Buddhism and of various modern systems, is falsified by this mistaken notion about the senses. Take this notion away, and both the old thought of India and the "new thought" of recent times fall in a shapeless mass to the ground.

The earliest Hindoo literature, like that of some other nations, took the form of poems. These grew by slow accretions to a great volume like the Mahaharata. In the twelfth century, B. C., the Brahminic religion had assumed what is still its modern form. If parts of the Vedas have been changed or formed since then, it was rather a change of expression than of thought.

Six centuries of trial proved how much this religion lacked in saving power, and then Gautama sought anew to solve the problem of evil. He founded Buddhism, and while this failed to supplant Brahminism in India, yet it was introduced to China and Japan and there became a leading religion. But this religion, both in its ancient form and in its modern shape as Theosophy, fails utterly and from its very

start, in solving the great problems of life and the universe. It tells us of "an omnipresent, eternal, boundless and immutable PRINCIPLE, on which all speculation is impossible, since it is beyond the range and reach of thought and is both unthinkable and unspeakable. " Then, of course, we have a right to say that we do not think that it is omnipresent, nor that it is eternal or immutable ! Such stuff is quite as bad, as self-contradictory and as nonsensical as Spencer's " Unknowable. " A " Wisdom Religion " should have better foundations than such wretched unreason.

The lofty moral precepts of the Hindoo teachers, their inculcations of charity, kindness, compassion and truth, these were to a great extent rendered nugatory by customs and practices shaped by their false philosophies. Yet India, like China, still has a glorious future before her. Her salvation lies not in the repression and suppression of the senses and aspirations. But rather it will come from learning the normal expression of these in a great and worthy system of truth and life.

The north Iranians or Medes were near of kin in blood and thought to the Hindoos. It was the Japhetic race from Media who had passed into India and by contact with the Dravidian race there had developed religion and literature. The Iranians embodied their religion in songs or Gathas about 15oo B. C. These were afterward included in the Zend Avesta by Zarathustra or Zoroaster. This civilization grew until we find (63o B. C.) its two branches, the Dledes and Persians, assume a leading position among the Oriental nations. By the