Atharva Veda, a book of magic spells, which to our minds would seem the most inappropriate place possible.

It might seem to follow from this that the speculative activity of this period belonged to the popular sphere represented by the religiou of the Atharva Veda, more than to the ritualistic cult that was the heir of the Rig Veda. But I think there is evidence to the contrary. However appropriate to the spirit of the popular religion it seemed in some respects, this activity was carried on mainly by the priests of the hieratic ritual. And this fact, which for various reasons seems to me indubitable, finds a striking concrete expression in a philosophic concept produced in this period which deserves special consideration.

Among all the varied formulations of the First and Supreme Principle, none recurs more constantly throughout the later Vedic texts than the brahman. The oldest meaning of this word seems to be "sacred utterance," or concretely "hymn" or "incantation." It is applied both to the ritual hymns of the Rig Veda and to the magic charms of the Atharva Veda. Any holy, mystic utterance is brahman. This is the regular, if not the exclusive, meaning which the word has in the Rig Veda. But from the point of view of those. times, this definition implies far more than it would suggest to our minds. The spoken word had a mysterious, supernatural power; it contained within itself the essence of the thing expressed. To "know the name" of anything was to control a thing. The word means wisdom, knowledge; and knowledge, as we have seen, was (magic) power. So brahman, the "holy word," soon came to mean the mystic power inherent in the holy word.

But to the later Vedic ritualists, this holy word was the direct expression and embodiment of the ritual religion, and as such a cosmic power of the first magnitude. The ritual religion, and hence its verbal expression, the brahman, was omnipotent. All human desires and aspirations were accessible to him who mastered it. All other cosmic forces, even the greatest of natural and supernatural powers, were dependent upon it. The gods themselves, originally the beneficiaries of the cult, became its helpless mechanical agents, or were left out of account altogether as useless middlemen. The cult was the direct controlling force of the universe. And the brahman was the spirit, the expression, of the cult; nay, it was the cult, mystically speaking, because the word and the thing were one; he who knew the word, knew and controlled the thing. Therefore, he who knew the brahman knew and controlled the whole universe.

It is no wonder, then, that in the later Vedic texts (not yet in the Rig Veda) we find the brahman frequently mentioned as the primal principle and as the ruling and guiding spirit of the universe. It is a thoroughly ritualistic concept, inconceivable except as an outgrowth of the theories of the ritualistic cult, but very simple and as it were self-evident from the point of view of the ritualists. The overwhelming prominence and importance of the brahman in later Vedic speculation seems, therefore, a striking proof of the fact that this speculation was at least in large part a product of ritualistic, priestly circles. If it shows a magic tinge suggestive of the popular rites and incantations, this simply means that the priests were also men, children of their times, and imbued with the ideas which prevailed among their people.

Not content with attempts to identify the One, the Vedic thinkers also try to define His, or Its, relation to the empiric world. Here again their suggestions are many and varied. Often the One is a sort of demiurge, a Creator, Father, First Cause. Such theistic expressions may be used of impersonal, monistic names for the One as well as of more personal, quasi-monotheistic ones. The One is compared to a carpenter or a smith; he joins or smelts the world into being. Or his act is like an act of generation; he begets all beings. Still more interestingly, his creative activity is compared to a sacrifice, a ritual performance, or to prayer, or religious fervor (dhi, tapas). This obviously ritualistic imagery appears even in the Rig Veda itself, in several of its philosophic hymns. In the Purusha hymn, already referred to, the universe is derived from the sacrifice of the cosmic Person, the Purusha; the figure is of the dismemberment of a sacrificial animal; from each of the members of the cosmic Purusha evolved a part of the existing world. The performers of this cosmogonic sacrifice are "the gods,"-inconsistently, of course, for the gods have already been declared to be secondary to the Purusha, who transcends all existing things. In later Vedic times we repeatedly meet with expressions suggesting such ritualistic lines of thought. They confirm our feeling that we are moving in hieratic circles.

We see from what has just been said of the Purusha hymn that the One-here the Purusha, the cosmic "Person" or "Man"-may be thought of as the material source (causa materialis) as well as the creator (causa efficiens) of the world. All evolves out of it, or "There is nothing more ancient or higher than this brahman," Shatapatha Brahmana, 10.3.5.11.

is a part of it; but frequently, as in the Purusha hymn, it is mor than all empiric existence; it transcends all things, which form, or derive from, but a part of it. Again, it is often spoken of as the ruler, controller, or lord of all. Or, it is the foundation, fundament, upon which all is based, which supports all. Still more significant are passages which speak of the One as subtly pervading all, as air or ether or space (ākāsha) pervades the physical universe, and animating all, as the breath of life (prāna) is thought of as both pervading and animating the human body.

Such ideas as the last mentioned lead to a deepening and spiritualizing of the concept of a parallelism between man, the microcosm, and the universe, the macrocosm, which as we have seen dates from late Rig-Vedic times. In the Purusha hymn of the Rig Veda we find a crude evolution of various parts of the physical universe from the parts of the physical body of the cosmic "Man." But in the later Vedic texts the feeling grows that man's nature is not accounted for by dissecting his physical body-and, correspondingly, that there must be something more in the universe than the sum total of its physical elements. What is that "something more" in man? Is it the "life-breath" or "life-breaths" (prāna), which seem to be in and through various parts of the human body and to be the principle of man's life (since they leave the body at death)? So many Vedic thinkers believed. What, then, is the corresponding "life-breath" of the universe? Obviously the wind, say some. Others think of it as the ākāsha, "ether," or "space." But even these are too physical, too material. On the human side, too, it begins to be evident that the "life-breath," like its cosmic counterpart the wind, is in reality physical. Surely the essential Man must be something else. What, then? Flittingly, here and there, it is suggested that it may be man's "desire" or "will" (kāma), or his "mind" (manas), or something else of a more or less psychological nature. But already in the Atharva Veda, and with increasing frequency later, we find as an expression for the real, essential part of Man the word ātman used. Atman means simply "self"; it is used familiarly as a reflective pronoun, like the German sich. One could hardly get a more abstract term for that which is left when everything unessential is deducted from man, and which is at the same time the principle of his life, the living soul that pervades his being. And, carrying on the parallelism, we presently find mention of the ātman, self or soul, of the universe. The texts do not content themselves with that; they continue to speculate as to what that "soul" of the universe is. But

these speculations tend to become more and more free from purely physical elements. Increasing partiality is shown for such metaphysical expressions as "the existent," or "that which is" (sat)," or again "the non-existent" (asat); in the Rig-Vedic hymn 10.129 we were told that in the beginning there was "neither existent nor nonexistent," but later we find both "the existent" and "the non-existent" used as expressions for the first principle. But perhaps the favorite formula in later Vedic times for the soul of the universe is the originally ritualistic one of the brahman.

This parallelism between the "self" of man and the "self" of the universe is still only a parallelism, not yet an identity. But we are now on the eve of the last and the boldest step, which it remained for the thinkers of the early Upanishads to take: that of declaring that the soul of man is the soul of the universe.

7 Compare the Greek Tò ŏv or Tò ŏvτws ŏv, “that which (really) is," and, for

a less exact parallel, the Kantian Ding an sich.

TH

COLERIDGE, OPIUM, AND THEOLOGY

BY DUDLEY WRIGHT

HE geographical distribution of religions has been expounded by more than one writer, whilst a physical basis, resulting from health or illness of individuals, has not escaped attention. In the instance of Coleridge, there is an example of the last category, combined with an illustration of the influence of drugs.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge presumably adopted Unitarian or Socinian views when a student at Cambridge. The by-laws of Christ's Hospital, which he entered in 1782, the same year as Charles Lamb, although Lamb's senior by three years, demanded baptized membership of the Church of England as a passport for admission, as did the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, or, in the case of the Universities, subscription to the thirty-nine Articles, which amounted to practically the same condition. We know from a letter which the father of Charles Lloyd wrote to his son, Robert, that Coleridge was educated "for a clergyman, but for conscience sake declined that office." In May, 1793, William Frend, a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, was tried in the Vice-Chancellor's Court for having given utterance to Liberal views in politics and Unitarian opinions in theology. Coleridge, then an undergraduate, and, in everything but mathematics, the earnest disciple of Frend, made himself dangerously conspicuous at that trial. Gunning, in his Reminiscences, relates an incident in connection therewith which does not show Coleridge in a very favorable light. The Senior Proctor had marked a man in the front row of the gallery who was particularly distinguishing himself by applauding. This was Coleridge, who, perceiving that the Proctor had noticed him and was making his way towards the gallery, turned round to the person who was standing behind him and made an offer of changing places, which was gladly accepted by the unsuspecting man. Coleridge immediately withdrew and, mixing with the crowd, escaped suspicion. Although the other