The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi by Sir Richard Francis Burton
page 76 of 91 (83%)
page 76 of 91 (83%)
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Milton:--
Till old experience doth attain To something of prophetic strain. He boldly declares that there is no God as man has created his Creator. Here he is at one with modern thought:--"En general les croyants font le Dieu comme ils sont eux-memes," (says J. J. Rousseau, "Confessions," I. 6): "les bons le font bon: les mechants le font mechant: les devots haineux et bilieux, ne voient que l'enfer, parce qu'ils voudraient damner tout le monde; les ames aimantes et douces n'y croient guere; et l'un des etonnements dont je ne reviens pas est de voir le bon Fenelon en parler dans son Telemaque comme s'il y croyoit tout de bon: mais j'espere qu'il mentoit alors; car enfin quelque veridique qu'on soit, il faut bien mentir quelquefois quand on est eveque." "Man depicts himself in his gods," says Schiller. Hence the _Naturgott_, the deity of all ancient peoples, and with which every system began, allowed and approved of actions distinctly immoral, often diabolical. Belief became moralized only when the conscience of the community, and with it of the individual items, began aspiring to its golden age,--Perfection. "Dieu est le superlatif, dont le positif est l'homme," says Carl Vogt; meaning, that the popular idea of a _numen_ is that of a magnified and non-natural man. He then quotes his authorities. Buddha, whom the Catholic Church converted to Saint Josaphat, refused to recognize Ishwara (the deity), on account of the mystery of the "cruelty of things." Schopenhauer, Miss Cobbe's model pessimist, who at the humblest |
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