Chapter 5
VANAPRASTHA
The heading of this chapter is a Sanskrit word, which means to a Hindu the stage of life to be spent in a forest as enjoined by his sacred law This is the third state , the two preceding it are Brahmacharya (education and observance of chastity) and Garhasthya (family life), and that following Vanaprastha is Sannyasa (wanderings as a vagrant ascetic) Max Muller described the state in the following words in one of his books
Then followed the third stage after a man had fulfilled all his duties, had performed all necessary sacrifices, and had seen the children of his children Then and then only came the time when he might retire from his house, give up all that belonged to him, and settle somewhere in the forest near, with or without his wife, but still accessible to his relations, and chiefly occupied in overcoming all passions by means of ascetic exercises, and withdrawmg his affections more and more from all the things of this life
During that third station, that of the Vanaprastha or Hylobtos , the mind of the hermit became more and more concentrated on that higher philosophy which we call religion, and more particularly on the Vedanta , as contained in the Upamshads, and similar but later works Instead of merely dipping into the waters, the philosophical baptism became then a complete submergence, an entrance into life with Brahman, where alone perfect peace and a perfect satisfaction of man’s spiritual desires could be found
When I speak of the Vanaprastha of Max Muller I have this spiritual quest in mind, and the description is wholly applicable to the last twenty-five years of his life He himself seems to have had the notion that the highest utterances of Hindu philosophy were sent out by the sages in their station of Vanaprastha As he wrote to Renan in 1877 ‘The Upamshads and the Vedanta , if looked into seriously, contain, I believe, the solution of many difficulties which perplex our philosophy. Only it is not enough to translate them, they require the shoulder of a Chnstophorus to carry them over the channel of two thousand years that runs between the old Vanaprasthas and us ’
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For the rest, Max Muller did not intend to abandon the world or its duties and obligations He did not even give any public exhibition of grief So those who came to see him could not have any inkling of the crushing sorrow which had undermined his will to live, though not his tenacity in work To the world at large he showed a cheerful and at times even a gay manner, and never failed in courtesy, sympathy and hospitality He even extended his social life When his daughter Mary left school in 1880, for her sake he received much more company at home, and this enabled him to see more of the younger members of the university One of them, Henry Newbolt, wrote long afterwards
I have seldom met anyone so entirely different from my imagination of him as Mr Max Muller I had pictured a burly, bearded German Professor, carelessly dressed, possibly brusque in manner, certainly of unavoidable learning, the author of all those books
This figure still lies — without its label — in some back cupboard of my mind , the gracious and genial presence of the real man could never be pieced on to it As to the books, I hardly feel sure who wrote them after all , I never heard anything of them from the true Max Muller I remember talks on music, dogs, poetry, Hindu ceremonies, pictures, sweetmeats, and fairy tales never a professorial or pedantic word
Newbolt also wrote that only once did he hear Muller speaking of religion with a guest, and that was when he was staying at Norham Gardens in August 1885 He talked in the garden with great vivacity of Darwin and Haeckel, and when the guest went into the house Muller turned upon Newbolt, looking up with a flash through his gold-rimmed glasses and burst out Tf you say that all is not made by design, by Love, then you may be in the same house, but you are not in the same world with me I * * * 5 That was, of course, the gauntlet thrown down by the teleologist to those who say that emergences are brought about by wholly accidental permutations and combinations Newbolt’ s more vivid memory was of the lover of dogs
I can see him now, standing at the window, when a picnic day had
turned out wet, grumbling, not to us but to the dogs, Waldmann and
Nannerl, and in a manner most sympathetically dog-like I see him, too, genuinely disturbed over the absence of Nannerl, sallying out late
at night to find the prodigal, with a lantern like a figure in one of
Richter’s charming prints, or Hans Andersen’s tales.
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The historical pedigree of these two dachshunds was a favourite topic with him When an American scholar, Ethelbert D Warfield, Principal of Lafayette College, came to see him, Muller related that three types of dogs were plainly distinguished on the pyramids, and among them was the type to which these highly specialized dogs belonged
Another acquaintance, describing his life at Oxford, wrote that Max Muller was usually at his best as a host , especially at All Souls, where this writer said T recall him upon a warm April day, “m such a time as comes before the leaf”, but when the tall windows of the college hall were thrown wide open to an expanse of emerald English turf, bordered by a blaze of jonquils, and Pyrus japomca, enthusiastically doing the honours of that stately place ’
In 1894 when he was over seventy an interviewer wrote of him ‘The Professor, for all his long laborious years, retains the vigour and vivacity of youth His manner of speech is rather that of a frolicsome undergraduate than of the typical University Don ’ That was the picture painted of him when he attended the Students 5 Club meeting in Glasgow while delivering his third Gifford Lecture The journal of the students reported him as saying
I have tasted a little of the professorial life of Glasgow, but this is the first time I have shared its student life, and I feel a student at Leipzig once again Later in the evening [the report continues] Mr MacLaren sang Die Wacht am Rhein , and Mr Buchanan Rhine Wine at the request of Professor Muller On their conclusion, he asked the company to join him in singing a song, known in every college in the world — a song that had come down for hundreds of years, the Gau - deamus igitur The Professor then took his seat at the piano, and in grand style led the splendid old song, the company joining with the greatest heartiness
I have read a number of Gifford Lectures, and could never imagine that anyone could have the energy to do such a thing after delivering not one but a series of three lectures Max Muller’s courtesy and hospitality were particularly marked towards foreigners As Henry Newbolt wrote to Mrs Max Muller ‘This quamt simplicity, the charm of the perfectly child-like character, always seemed to me the one un-English part of him It carried with it the power, which we as a nation lack, of entering with ease and sincerity into relations, however sudden and unexpected, with strangers or foreigners 5
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He was always ready to wecome Indians, whether known or unknown Young students and visitors were received into his house with the same courtesy as he showed to the most distinguished figures from India One of them wrote to Mrs Max Muller after his death ‘I do not know whether you still remember it, but I had the pleasure and privilege of passing a few hours in the company of your late illustrious husband in the middle of May 1882, at your hospitable residence in Oxford To you and to your husband it was only one of the numerous visits Indians of all castes and creeds, of all shades and colours, paid to the great Rishi of Oxford, but to me it has been one of the most memorable incidents of my whole life * Even immediate sorrow would not prevent him from receiving an unknown Indian In 1886, soon after the death of Max Muller’s daughter Mary, a Bengali came to see him at Oxford, and he left the following description of the visit in his travel diary, published in 1889 His name was Trailokya Nath Mukharji This is what he wrote
So one day in November 1886 I rang the visitor’s bell at the door of his cottage in the suburbs of Oxford * Mrs Max Muller herself opened the door An elderly gentleman of venerable appearance soon appeared in the passage, who received me with the utmost kindness It needed not an introduction to tell me that I stood in the presence of the man who would vie with Sayanacharya and Yaska in his profound love of Vedic learning, and with Pamm in his power of critical investigation and intelligent collation of facts Still I asked ‘Have I the honour to speak to Professor Muller He quietly said ‘I am that individual ’ Then we sat for a long time in his cosy drawing room where a cheerful fire was burning, but, alas* deep sadness reigned over the whole house The Professor constantly talked of India and the Hindus for whom he has the deepest sympathy and love He told me that although his body lived in England his mind and soul were in India
Distinguished foreign visitors were always coming to his house to see him or to stay with him Among those who came during the last twenty-five years of Muller’s life were Renan, Darmesteter and even Turgenev from Paris, the Grand Duke of Baden, the Crown Prince of Sweden, a Red Indian chief named Strong Buffalo and Prince and Princess Christian The well-known American author Oliver Wendell Holmes came in 1886, and Lowell, the American
* 7 Norham Gardens was big enough to house Max Muller’s 13,000 books, and is now a school At that date ‘north of the Parks’ was a suburb of Oxford
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critic who represented his country in England as Minister, came often
Max Muller felt that he had a moral obligation to his foreign visitors As the American scholar Dr Warfield put it Tt seemed as though the foreigner enjoyed an especial welcome in that home Perhaps it was because he remembered the time when he, too, was a stranger in a strange land , remembered the loneliness of his own lot, remembered, too, and sought to return, the kindness which had been shown to him ’
It was during this station of Vanaprastha , as I have called it, that he turned out all his major works of scholarship and thought, with the exception of the first edition of the Rig-Veda and his volumes on the Science of Language Work was a matter of habit and principle with him, and after the death of two of his daughters it had become a refuge from sorrow, though often he longed for rest
The major work of editing which he undertook was the series The Sacred Books of the East , and the original contributions to science and scholarship were his books on religion, mythology and thought Besides, he had the habit of continuously revising and rearranging his older works, and these often called for very strenuous work
Quite early in life he had laid down for himself a systematic programme of philosophical inquiry, and he described it in the preface to the two volumes on the science of mythology, published at the very end of his life in 1897 In it he said that he had planned as the work of his life an exposition, however imperfect, of the four sciences of Language, Mythology, Religion and Thought, ‘following each other in natural succession, and comprehending the whole sphere of activity of the human mind from the earliest period within the reach of our knowledge to the present day 9 He elaborated the assumptions underlying this programme in these words
There is nothing more ancient in the world than language The history of man begins, not with rude flints, rock temples or pyramids, but with language
The second stage is represented by myths as the first attempts at translating the phenomena of nature into thought
The third stage is that of religion or the recognition of moral powers, and in the end of One Moral Power behind and above all nature The fourth and last is philosophy, or a critique of the powers of reason in their legitimate working on the data of experience
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He had already put in a comprehensive form what he had to say about three of these, namely language, religion and thought, in the following books
I The Science of Language, two volumes, last edition, 1891 II The Science of Religion,
1 Introduction to the Science of Religion, 1870
Hibbert Lectures
2 The Origin and Growth of Religion, 1878
Gifford Lectures Four Series
3 Natural Religion, 1888
4 Physical Religion, 1890
5 Anthropological Religion, 1891
6 Theosophy or Psychological Religion, 1892 III The Science of Thought, 1887
To this is to be added his translation of Kant’s Critique of Pure
Reason , with an introduction by Muller himself
He wanted to supplement these by presenting his systematic view of mythology, but at first felt that he did not have the time and strength needed for it in the midst of other work But at last he was almost provoked to write the book by the continuous attacks on his views on this subject by critics who said that they were completely out of date He took all this almost as a personal challenge, and in 1897 brought out his Contributions to the Science of Mythology in two massive volumes, running to a total of 864 pages
Some account must be given in this chapter of his dealing with religion, thought and mythology But before that it is necessary to describe another editorial undertaking of his, the publication of The Sacred Books of the East , which finally ran to forty-nine volumes # It occupied him over the last twenty-five years of his life m collaboration with specialists and fellow-workers in many countries
Soon after he had published the sixth and last volume of his Rig-Veda (1874), the idea of supplementing this work with translations from the sacred writings of other religions, as a comprehensive source for the study of religion, entered his mind The first reference by him to such a project is to be found in a letter to the Sinologist Legge, which he wrote on February 13, 1875 In it he informed Legge that he was trying very hard to get a number of
* One index volume was added later, and it was compiled by Dr Wmtermtz
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scholars together for making translations of the other sacred writings, but at the same time expressed the fear that it might not be an easy task The same year the project became more concrete He received an invitation from the Austrian Government to transfer his services to Vienna and to publish a series of translations as envisaged by him under the auspices of the Imperial Academy It was this proposal which, apart from personal reasons, lay behind his decision to resign from his chair at Oxford But, as has been related, his friends saw to it that he should get the time and facilities to carry out the project at Oxford
He at once prepared a prospectus of the series, and sent it to all those who might be interested in the project He had already ensured the support of a number of scholars, but many more had to be found Looking at the matter from the point of view of the translators, he said that the work could be undertaken by them at a certain sacrifice, for they must leave for a time their own special researches He also observed that ‘there was the most serious difficulty of all, a difficulty which no scholar could remove, viz , the difficulty of finding the funds necessary for carrying out so large an undertaking * However, through the interest taken in it by Lord Salisbury, who was for some time Secretary of State for India, Sir Henry Maine, a former member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, and Dean Liddell, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, it was decided to publish the series at the expense jointly of the University Press and the Government of India
Twenty-four volumes were contemplated, and they were to be apportioned between six religions two from India, Hinduism and Buddhism; two from China, Taoism and Confucianism; Zoastrianism from Persia, and Islam The Christian and Judaic scriptures, though eastern in their origin, were excluded for fear of offending orthodoxy, and even the publication of the others gave offence to many English Christians Progress at fiist was slow, but three volumes of The Sacred Books of the East were published in May 1879, and were dedicated to Lord Salisbury, Sir Henry Maine, and Dean Liddell, ‘to whose kind interest and exertions this attempt to make known to the English people the sacred books of the East is so largely indebted’
When the first three volumes were being bound Max Muller was provided with a very striking and significant ‘motto, figurehead, flag’, as he described it (I will call it a manifesto), for the
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whole senes by a lady who at the time was only a casual acquaintance of his but was to become a close friend She was Lady Welby, who was very much interested in religious and philosophical questions She had heard of the project and had been roused to great indignation by the accusations that in publishing the series, which she called a ‘signal service’ to religion, Max Muller had only wished to discredit Christianity One day, looking through her bookshelves, the first book she drew out was the work of a seventeenthcentury divine, Bishop Beveridge (1636-1707), entitled Private Thoughts on Religion Almost the first passage that caught her eyes was one which she thought was strikingly applicable to the work Muller had undertaken
The general inclinations which are naturally implanted in my soul to some religion, it is impossible for me to shift off [wrote Bishop Beveridge], but there being such a multiplicity of religions in the world, I desire now seriously to consider with myself which of them all to restrain these my general inclinations to
Indeed there was never any religion so barbarous and diaoohcai, but it was preferred before all other religions whatsoever, by them that did profess it , otherwise they would not have professed it
And why, say they, may you not be mistaken as well as we ? Especially when there is, at least, six to one against your Christian religion, all of which think they serve God aright, and expect happiness as well as you
I am resolved to be more jealous and suspicious of this religion, than of the rest, and be sure not to entertain it any longer without being convinced by solid and substantial arguments, of the truth and certainty of it That, therefore, I may make diligent and impartial inquiry into all religions and so be sure to find out the best, I shall for a time, look upon myself as one not at all interested in any particular religion whatsoever, much less in the Christian religion; but only as one who desires, in general, to serve and obey Him that made me, in a right manner, and thereby to be made partaker of that happiness my nature is capable of
She at once sent the passage to him, and called afterwards She herself described that meeting:
I can never forget that picture
He was sitting at his writing-table After a kindly greetmg he said, T was sittmg just there when your letter came It had all the effect upon me of what is called a miracle It was a bolt out of the blue , it
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was exactly what was wanted, and if it had reached me but a few hours later it would have been too late As it was, I had to wire to the binder to stop work
Completing The Sacred Books of the East was like extending the principle of criticism of life formulated by Plato to religion and belief Max Muller certainly thought that the corpus of the religious texts he was preparing would not only bring criticism into the study of religion, but also revalidate religion by means of the same criticism Muller wrote a detailed exposition of the aims in the first volume of The Sacred Books , which contained his translations of some of the TJpanishads Only a summary can be offered here
The basic aim was quite clearly historical Muller thought that the texts might be of use to theologians, and might also help missionaries by giving them an accurate knowledge of other religions, as indispensable to them as is the knowledge of an enemy country to a general Nevertheless, he explained, the texts had assumed quite a new importance in his time as historical documents He declared that it could not be emphasized strongly enough that the chief interest of these books was historical, and only the historian would be able to understand the important lessons which they taught
But, in order to be of value to the historian, a very strict principle of selection of the texts had to be followed, and the limitations of the translations frankly recognized The principle was that the texts or passages translated should not be one-sided, presenting only the brighter aspects of the religions dealt with, and that they should never omit what could appear as primitive, crude, childish and even repulsive to modern readers There was nothing Max Muller disapproved of more strongly than uncritical admiration, and especially of the Eastern religions
In his introduction he referred to the books which had already been published in which these texts were described as full of primeval wisdom, religious enthusiasm and also sound and simple moral teaching He observed that this illusion had to be dispelled and the study of the ancient religions of the world had to be placed on a more sound and truly historical basis ‘The time has come/ he said, ‘when the study of the ancient religions of mankind must be approached in a different, less enthusiastic, more discriminating, m fact in a more scholar-like spirit ’
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In the report on the progress of the series which he submitted to Dean Liddell in 1882, he emphasized the principle even more strongly in the light of the criticism of his editing
I have been blamed for not making this Series of Sacred Books more attractive and more popular, but to do so would have been incompatible with the very object I had in view in publishing these translations I thought the time had come when the ancient religions of the East should be studied in their own canonical texts, and that an end should thus be put to the vague assertions as to their nature and character, whether coming from the admirers or the detractors of those ancient creeds To have left out what seems tedious and repulsive in them would have been to my mind simply dishonest, and I could have been no party to such an undertaking The translations as here published, are historical documents that cannot be tampered with without destroying their value altogether
Even so he was attacked for suppressing some of the objectionable sides of these religions In 1886 the Bishop of Colombo wrote to Max Muller about the method of presenting the Buddhist Vmaya texts by omitting to reproduce the parts which could be regarded as objectionable A journal in India violently attacked him for giving a false idea of the real character of some of the Buddhist teaching These charges were repeated by Professor T in Lmdsay of Edinburgh
Whatever might have been his editorial decision in regard to particular passages, Max Muller had laid down the general principle governing the inclusion or exclusion of what might have been regarded as obscene details in the introduction to the first volume In it he said
There are in ancient books, and particularly in religious books, frequent allusions to the sexual aspects of nature, which, though perfectly harmless and innocent in themselves, cannot be rendered in modern language without the appearance of coarseness We may regret that it should be so, but tradition is too strong on this point, and I have therefore felt obliged to leave certain passages untranslated, and to give the original, when necessary, in a note
But he felt that on the whole he had tried not to suppress the outspoken simplicity of the ancient man, because he felt that this man as he really was, that is, as an animal with all the strength and weaknesses of an animal, must be studied in all his aspects
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As to his general attitude, he rather feared that his fellow-workers would think that he had used very strong and irreverent language with regard to the ancient sacred books of the East But he justified his approach by saying that in the days of anthropological research when no custom was too disgusting to be recorded, it would be strange if the few genuine relics of ancient religion which had been miraculously preserved should be judged from an aesthetic, and not from an historical point of view
After setting down this caution for those who might expect to find nothing but gems in the sacred books of the East, he went on to describe the difficulty which mthe best circumstances might prevent a full and accurate understanding of these books Translations, he said, could never take the place of the originals, because they could never be more than an approximation of one language to the other Then he observed ‘The translator, however, if he has once gamed the conviction that it is impossible to translate old thought into modern speech, without doing some violence either to the one or to the other, will hardly hesitate in his choice between two evils He will prefer to do some violence to language rather than to misrepresent old thoughts by clothing them in words which do not fit them * He illustrated his principle later in his report to Dean Liddell by describing his method of translating the Upamshads , which were not only obscure but also repellent in many places He wrote
If, as has been pointed out, my translation often differs so widely from previous translations as to seem hardly based on the same original text, this is due chiefly to my venturing to steer a course independent of native commentators I have little doubt that future translators of the Upamshads will assert their independence of Sankara’s commentary still more decidedly Native commentators though indispensable and extremely useful, are so much under the spell of the later systematic Vedanta philosophy that they often do violence to the simplest thoughts of ancient poets and philosophers.
By the beginning of 1882 fourteen volumes of The Sacred Books had been published, eight more were in the press, and the translation of the remaining two of the first senes of twenty-four was sufficiently advanced to be ready by 1884. So Max Muller thought it necessary to put before the Delegates of the Clarendon Press and the Secretary of State for India the question of continuing the work m a second series, as was the wish of a large number of scholars
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whom he had sounded He could also say that, though the first series was not launched as a commercial proposition, the sales had been such that not only the recoupment of the expenditure by the Clarendon Press, but also a profit could be expected
But objections to the undertaking, as has already been mentioned, had been raised from the start The translations had been welcomed by Dr Pusey himself, and Lord Lytton, as Viceroy of India, had formed an opimon on them which he expressed to Muller in a letter written in 1885, after his retirement ‘Your own enterprise/ he wrote, ‘with The Sacred Books of the East is colossal It takes one’s breath away Never was an Introducteur des Ambassadeurs on so vast a scale, nor with such great personages dependent on his good offices ’ But the orthodox of the narrow type persisted in their opposition Nevertheless, the second series was sanctioned Max Muller’s faith in the undertaking was founded not only on its historical importance but also on an assessment of its general significance for religion, and was as unwavering as it was firmly asserted Even in 1879, when only the first volumes had been published, he had written to Lady Welby ‘Of one thing I feel very certain, that this translation of The Sacred Books of the East , which some of the good people here consider most objectionable, will do a great deal towards lifting Christianity into its highest historical position I look forward to the time when those who objected to my including the Old and New Testaments among The Sacred Books of the East will implore me to do so ’
After the second series was sanctioned he wrote even more confidently In a letter to Renan on April 21, 1883, he described the opposition, explained his own stand, and incidentally sought the support of the great French scholar
The first series of twenty-four volumes is nearly finished, and when I proposed the second series, mes amts les ennemis did all that they could to prevent it They have not succeeded, and the second series will appear, but I shall be glad of an authoritative voice like yours to tell the English public the real purpose of the undertaking Most of my English critics say ( Les Bibles de Vhumamte ne sont pas amusantes* Certainly not 1 they are not amusing, on the contrary, they are the very saddest books to read But they must be read, they must be meditated on, if we want to know what kind of creature homo sapiens is
Then followed a passage which might be described as Muller’s credo for the series
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The Bibles were considered by him [homo sapiens] as the best he could produce as superhuman and Divine , let that be one lesson But there is another, and a more cheerful lesson , amid all this scoria there are the small grams of gold — be good, be true, be patient, trust — the same everywhere, in the highest and the lowest religions, and these grams are the quod semper 3 quod ubique, quod ab omnibus , which will form the eternal religion of the world These Sacred Books of the East will become in future the foundation of a short but universal religion, they will remain the most instructive archives of the past, studied or consulted when thousands of books of the day are forgotten, and yet my wise friends say C ce n 3 est pas amusant 3 ?
Finally he observed that it reflected great credit on the Oxford University Press and the Secretary of State for India that they had not been frightened by the vulgar clamour ‘A few words/ he added to Renan, ‘from you to the Academie des Inscriptions would be a great help to them and to me So if you could find time for saying a few weighty words, I should feel grateful 9 When the two series were nearmg completion, his Indian friends sent him an address of appreciation signed by Hindu Pandits, to which distinguished Indians of all religions added their signature In it they spoke of The Sacred Books in these words
Your series of The Sacred Books of the East is calculated to generate and strengthen in the mmds of those who read it a conviction that God’s ennobling and elevating truth is not the monopoly of any particular race It unfolds the gradual evolution of religious thought, the different stages of which were developed by different races or by the same race at different times It has already communicated a strong impetus to the unifying movement alluded to above, and we are glad to observe that the philosophic writers of England have begun to avail themselves of the information therein laid before them.
The next year there was one Anglican divine of great spiritual sensitiveness who conveyed his impression of the value of The Sacred Books He was Archdeacon Wilson, who wrote in January 16, 1894: ‘Science has discovered much in the Victorian era, but I think that no discovery will bear such lasting fruits as yours, and your great edition of The Sacred Books of the East So in case the new year finds you lonely and discouraged, I send you a word of thanks and love from this smoky, foggy town of Rochdale ’
While Max Muller was carrying on this vast task of compiling a
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source-book of religion, he was also giving out his own ideas on the nature and history of religion, thought and mythology in a series of impressive books Some of them were lectures printed in book form Max Muller was never slipshod or obscure in the presentation of his ideas On the contrary, his expositions were always striking by means of their style It is, however, not always easy to present all ideas so as to be intelligible to everybody, because some ideas are intrinsically difficult to grasp, and not even always accessible to reason without the help of intuitive sympathy This difficulty would face the reader when reading Max Muller’s more abstruse books
His first important series of lectures were the Hibbert Lectures on religion, delivered from April 1878, and published in book form immediately afterwards These Hibbert Lectures On the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religions of India were delivered in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey The whole series was finished in three months
Shortly before the day of the first lecture Max Muller got a telegram from the Chapter that 1,400 applications had been received for tickets (which were gratis), while the hall could hold only 600 So, not to disappoint those who wanted to hear him, he lectured twice, morning and afternoon Of the first lecture a leading paper wrote ‘The place, the lecturer, and the occasion were all alike remarkable Under the shadow of one of the noblest buildings ever raised by medieval Christianity, an Oxford Professor came forward to deal with the deepest problems of historical religion in the “dry light 5 ’ of modern science, and in the name of a trust which was intended by its founder to promote “the unfettered exercise of private judgement in matters of religion" ’ Another paper said. ‘The Chapter House was thickly crowded with perhaps the most remarkably eclectic audience ever assembled withm that majestic old building To very many the thought must have occurred, with what astonishment the old monks of Westminster would have looked upon such an audience gathered in their Chapter House for such a purpose 5
The tone of these notices, shows that in religion, as with language, Max Muller could suddenly open up for his hearers wide and unsuspected mental horizons Naturally, there were adverse as well as appreciative comments, and some in strong and unsparingly severe language Max Muller was prepared for the attacks Thus on
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December 7, 1878, he wrote to Stanley ‘Of course I know that many people will be angry with my Lectures If it were not so, I should not have written them The more I see of the so-called heathen religions, the more I feel convinced that they contain germs of the highest truth There is no distinction in kind between them and our own religion The artificial distinction which we have made has not only degraded the old revelation, but has given to our own almost a spectral character ’
A few months later he repeated this at greater length to Malabari ‘As I told you on a former occasion,’ he wrote on January 29, 1882, ‘my thoughts were with the people of India I wanted to tell those few at least whom I might hope to reach in English, what the true historical value of their ancient religion is, as looked upon, not from an exclusively European or Christian, but from an historical point of view ’
At the same time he was aware of a certain risk of being the bearer of a misunderstood message to the Hindus of his age As he wrote
I wished to warn against two dangers, that of undervaluing or despising the ancient national religion, as is done so often by your half-Europeamzed youths, and that of overvaluing it, and interpreting it as it was never meant to be interpreted, of which you may see a painful instance m Dayananda Saraswati’s labours on the Veda Accept the Vedas as an ancient historical document, containing thoughts in accordance with the character of an ancient and simple-minded race of men, and you will be able to admire it, and to retain some of it, particularly the teaching of the Upamshads , even in these modem days Accept the past as a reality, study it and try to understand it, and you will then have less difficulty in finding the right way towards the future
To put it crudely, but not untruly in its essential purport, the path taken by the Hindus, with the help of the work on their religion by Western scholars and more especially by Max Muller, gradually revealed itself to be the very opposite of the right way as understood by him
Already before his death modern Hindus were falling into four different groups in their application of the results of Western investigations into their past religion The first group was made up of the traditional Hindus who were acquiring dogmatism with a strong infusion of intolerant fanaticisms in their beliefs and atti-
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tudes The second group had in it men of genuine religious sensibility who had been awakened to a new conception of God and spirituality by Christianity, but who tried to clothe their basically Christian spiritual life under the cover of Upcmishadic teaching There was a third group formed by men who were religious in their way, but unable to stand on their own feet So they were carried away both by their own inclinations and by the prestige of Europe m that age to accept their religion from the hands of European charlatans, and to drift towards extremely spurious groups like the Theosophists Lastly, the half-Europeamzed part of the Hindu intelligentsia made use of the West’s discovery of their religion to bolster up a peculiarly xenophobic nationalism, without any realization of its spiritual value
However, for the present his Hibbert Lectures were translated and published in some Indian languages at the initiative of Malabari, and as he could not bear the expenses of getting this done himself he had to appeal for subscriptions
Max Muller’s next full-length presentation of his own thoughts was an attempt to understand the process of thought itself, which resulted in a large book entitled The Science of Thought published in March 1887 He was fully conscious of what he was doing, and did not expect the same kind of reaction to it as he had seen to his books on religion or language Even before the publication of the book he wrote to his friend Dr Prowe ‘It contains much that is old, and much that is new; but whether the present-day people will read it or not, I do not know ’ So far as the book was a reassertion of his thesis of the inseparability of thought and language which he had put forward in all his treatment of language, it did draw on itself adverse comments For the rest, it caused less trouble for him than his previous books, and the subsequent ones
T feel convinced,’ he said, ’that the views put forward in this book, which are the result of a long life devoted to solitary reflection and to the study of the foremost thinkers of all nations, contain certain truths which deserve to be recorded I have written some of my books as a pleader, and, if I may judge by results, I have not pleaded quite in vam But the present book is not meant to be persuasive All I can say of it is, Dixi et salvavi animam meant 9
Since the reading public always give every system of thought a hallmark and label, he thought it necessary to explain that his system might be called Nominalism, which it would not be in any
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strict sense It might also be regarded as being materialistic And he might be asked whether he was a Darwinian One special concept of thought, as arrived at by him, he thought it necessary to make explicit He said that ’thought in the sense in which I have defined it and used it in my book, represents one side of human nature only, the intellectual, and there are two other sides, the ethical and aesthetical, on which I have not touched’
After finishing his book on thought he wrote to Noire ‘There is a book on mythology to follow, and perhaps the preparation of a new edition of Lectures on the Science of Language , and then I may be allowed to say, “Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace" ’ But his nunc dimittis had to be postponed by a chance circumstance which led him for four years to devote himself to a consideration of the history of religion in the most lengthy and elaborate set of books he ever wrote
In January 1888, his friends had urged on the University of Edinburgh the election of Max Muller as the first Gifford Lecturer But an old Edinburgh man, Hutchinson Stirling, was elected The University of Glasgow, which had also been endowed by Lord Gifford, immediately offered its Lectureship to Muller at the instance of Principal Caird He accepted the invitation
Lord Gifford had been a distinguished Scottish lawyer, whom the outside world took to be no more than a keen, hard-working, and judicious professional man, who after gaming wealth, and a good deal of it at the Bar, had taken a place on the bench His intimate friends knew him as a man of philosophical temperament, who was devoted to Plato, Spinoza and other philosophers But his will when opened, surprised even them After providing for his relatives, he gave the residue, a very large sum, to the four Scottish universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and St Andrews, to establish Lectureships on religion He wanted through these lectures to promote what he called Natural Theology among the people of Scotland, and he defined Natural Theology in the widest sense of that term as ‘the knowledge of God, the Infinite, the All, the First and only Cause, the One and the Sole Substance, the Sole Being, the Sole Reality, and the Sole Existence, the Knowledge of His Nature and Attributes, the Knowledge of the Relations which men and the whole universe bear to Him, the Knowledge of the Nature and Foundation of Ethics and Morals, and of all Obligations and Duties hence arising’.
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To give away one’s money for such a purpose was indeed remarkable, but even more remarkable were the terms which were to be complied with in electing the lecturers The will declared
The lecturers shall be subject to no test of any kind, and shall not be required to take any oath, or to emit or subscribe any declaration of belief, or to make any promise of any land, they may be of any denomination whatever, or of no denomination at all (and many earnest and high-minded men prefer to belong to no ecclesiastical denomination) , they may be of any religion or way of thinking, or, as is sometimes said, they may be of no religion, or they may be so-called sceptics or agnostics or free-thinkers, provided that the ‘Patrons’ will use diligence to secure that they be able, reverent men, true thinkers, sincere lovers and earnest inquirers after truth
With equal boldness Lord Gifford laid down the principle of treating the subjects He wrote ‘I wish the lecturers to treat their subject as a strictly natural science, the greatest of all possible sciences, indeed, in one sense, the only science, that of Infinite Being, without reference to or reliance upon any supposed and socalled miraculous revelation I wish it to be considered just as astronomy or chemistry is ’
In view of these directions in the will of Lord Gifford, Max Muller called the Lectureships a sign, and a very important sign, of the times
The first series of Gifford Lectures at Glasgow was delivered by Muller in 1888, and he was elected three times after that and delivered the Lectures in 1890, 1891 and 1892 In these four sequences he presented a stupendous synthesis of the evolution of religion in an ascending process in four stages, which he called Natural Religion, Physical Religion, Anthropological Religion and Theosophy or Psychological Religion
He tried to observe Lord Gifford’s directions, but was attacked for that very reason No public protest was raised against the first lectures, though when they were published one critic said that ‘the learned professor found something good in every religion, except in Christianity’
A more comminatory attack was made on Max Muller from the Roman Catholic side Monsignor Munro in the Catholic St Andrew’s Cathedral took his text from Matthew’s account of the betrayal of Christ by Judas, and announced that he was going to
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apply that terrible narrative to the subject he was going to deal with that evening Then he said
The Gifford Lectures delivered by Professor Max Muller were nothing less than a crusade against Divine revelation, against Jesus Christ, and against Christianity The guilt of those who permitted that antiChnstian doctrme in a university founded to defend Christianity, was simply horrible It was a strange thing that in a Christian university, public feeling should have tolerated the ostentatious publication of infidelity
As to Max Muller ‘Professor Max Muller was incapable of a philosophical idea, and ignorant of Christianity he sought to overthrow His theory uprooted our idea of God, for it repudiated the idea of a personal God ’
He added that the lectures were blasphemous, and even Muller’s pantheism was atheism in disguise
However, that made no difference either to Max Muller or to the university, and he was able to give his fourth series of lectures in 1892 The last words of the last series were
I do not believe in human infallibility, least of all, in Papal infallibility I do not believe in professorial infallibility, least of all in that of your Gifford Lecturer We are all fallible, and we are fallible either in our facts, or in the deductions which we draw from them If therefore any of my learned critics will tell me which of my facts are wrong, or which of my conclusions are faulty, let me assure them, that though I am now a very old Professor, I shall always count those among my best friends who will not mind the trouble of supplying me with new facts, or of pointing out where they have been wrongly stated by me, or who will correct any arguments that may seem to them to offend against the sacred laws of logic
It remains to consider only his last major work, his lengthy treatise on mythology published in 1897, when he was seventy-four. For Max Muller mythology, language and religion were cognate subjects In fact, his excursion into mythology was an extension of his work on language, and that fact conditioned his whole approach to mythology and his method of dealing with it Actually, his essay on comparative mythology preceded his formal lectures on language It was published in 1856, five years before them But not less important were his conclusions about mythology, incidentally but
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quite formally set down in all his books on language and religion It was these which really drew the fire of a different school of mythologists on him So one might say that his formal book on mythology, published when he was almost approaching death, was like the legitimization of a dearly loved natural son
In this chapter I shall give only the external framework of his work on mythology Max Muller was extremely tenacious about his conclusions on any subject after he had arrived at them as a result of prolonged study and thinking That might be looked upon as dogmatism, but as has been shown by his final remarks in his last Gifford Lecture, he did not admit he was dogmatic He sincerely believed that he kept an open mind He always believed and said that the claim to have uttered the dernier mot was wholly baseless In any case, his treatise on mythology began with a fanfare, and it is heartening to feel the gusto of the counter-attack delivered by him He did not fight back with spleen and rancour but with coolness To begin with, he was very forthright about the nature of the attacks on his views ,
It is easy to say such things [he wrote in his preface to the book] in a number of daily papers, but they do not become true for all that If, as happens sometimes, the same critic is on the staff of many papers, and has to supply copy every day, every week, or every month, the broken rays of one brilliant star may produce the dazzling impression of many independent lights, and there has been of late such a galaxy of sparkling articles on Comparative Mythology and Folklore, that even those who are themselves opposed to this new science, have at last expressed their disapproval of the ‘journalistic mist’ that has been raised, and that threatens to obscure the real problems of the Science of Mythology
He conceded readily that the writers of such articles were fully persuaded of the truth of their opinions, but at the same suggested gently that they might also consider the judgement of real scholars not wholly undeserving of their attention
Then he set forth his position in the controversy
In what I am going to say I am not defending myself, though I am always represented, if not as the true founder, at all events as the only champion left to defend the Science of Mythology I can therefore speak with all the more freedom and without fear of being considered egotistical I am pleading pro domo, but not for myself Scholars come
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and go and are forgotten, but the road which they have opened remains, other scholars follow in their footsteps, and though some of them retrace their steps, on the whole there is progress
After that he went on to mention the names of many eminent scholars in Italy, Holland, Germany, America and France to show how the science was being carried on
The whole dispute was over method Max Muller followed the philological method, whereas his critics followed the anthropological Max Muller’s contention throughout was that whatever detritus mythology may carry along with it, its original constituent elements were words and phrases about the most striking phenomena of nature, such as day and night, dawn and evening, sun and moon, sky, earth and sea, in their various relations to each other and to man As his wife defined it in her biography ‘Max Muller’s highest object was to discover reason in all the unreason of mythology, and thus to vindicate the character of our ancestors, however distant ’ As far back as 1869 in a letter to Sir George Cox, another mythologist, he had emphasized the connexion between Sanskrit, Comparative Philology and Comparative Mythology He wrote ‘The most minute criticism of etymological coincidences seems to me the only safe foundation of Comparative Mythology . If, therefore, you ask me, I tell you openly, do not make Comparative Mythology the principal work of your life, unless you make up your mmd first to study Sanskrit and Comparative Philology ’
He said the same thing to Andrew Lang, the most sparkling among his critics, in a letter written in 1897 ‘Still less could I understand why you should have attacked me, or rather my masters, without learning Sanskrit, which is by no means so difficult as people imagine You must have a rapier to fight a man who has a rapier, otherwise it becomes a row *
He asserted at the same time that he did not dispute the value of the anthropological approach, and observed ‘I don’t say that I should go to the stake for it, but I am perfectly certain that some good may be got from the study of savages for the elucidation of Aryan myths Uun n’empeche pas V autre 5
Continuing, he paid a warm tribute to Frazer of The Golden Bough ‘Frazer has never attacked me, and I have always touched my hat to him He works his mine, I work mine why should we quarrel
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Andrew Lang had the good sense and the good manners to recognize the urbanity of Max Muller in controversy, and also to perceive the basic cause of their differences After the death of Muller he wrote to Mrs Max Muller ‘My own relations with Mr Max Muller were those of an amateur, or casual inquirer, who ventured, on a single point, to oppose the conclusions of a man eminently learned We approached the subject, that of the origin of myths, from different quarters, and saw different sides of the shield as in the old apologue Neither of us was fortunate enough to convert the other ’ Then followed his tribute
But what I am anxious to say is, that Mr Max Muller always met my criticisms, often petulant in manner, and perhaps often unjust, with a good humour and kindness perhaps unexampled in the controversies of the learned and the half-learned I shall always remember with pleasure certain occasions when Mr Max Muller turned my own laugh against myself, with victorious humour and good humour History would offer reading much more agreeable, if discussions were always conducted (they almost never are) in the genial and humane temper which Mr Max Muller displayed in dealing with an ‘opposite* so unworthy as myself
Such letters keep up one’s faith in and respect for writers and scholars
Though Max Muller was always ready to go on with his work without the world’s praise, it could never be said that those who conferred position in the world were indifferent to his merits From a fairly early age he had been receiving academic and other honours which would have satisfied the yearning for recognition of any scholar Though he had never sought or canvassed for them, he was not above feeling a certain pride in them Actually he delighted m them from a childlike desire for praise, regarded them as a precious reward, and above all as a strong incentive to further work However, one grievance lingered vaguely in his heart and rankled more actively in the mind of his wife, who could not understand why when foreign countries were vying with one another to grant him distinctions, nothing had been given him in his adopted country She smarted under this sense of injustice The death of his first daughter made him somewhat indifferent to such things, and he wrote to his wife in 1883 ‘There was a time when I should have liked to have been made Sir Frederick and you Lady Max
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Muller Dear Stanley wrote to me years ago that a baronetcy or a life peerage would be the right thing — however, we do very well without, and want nothing more from the world ’
In one very high place in the world there was great regard both for him and his work The Queen herself and the entire royal household were always very kind to him So in 1886 the Queen suggested to Gladstone that he might receive some public mark of her favour The Prime Minister suggested a knighthood Upon this the Queen wanted to know privately what Max Muller’s feeling might be Neither Max Muller nor his wife could look upon this as an adequate recognition when foreign countries had given him their highest honours reserved for literary work So the objection was explained to the Queen, and she fully appreciated Muller’s motives in not accepting a knighthood
Ten years later it was obviously the Queen again who took the initiative On May 17, 1896, Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister wrote in his own hand to Max Muller
Dear Professor Max Muller,
I have great pleasure in informing you that Her Majesty has been pleased to mark her sense of the great services you have rendered to philological science in this country and of your singular eminence in the world of letters, by directing that you should be summoned to the Privy Council I am very glad to be the channel of this communication
Believe me,
Yours very truly,
Salisbury
The announcement was made among the Birthday Honours on May 20 The Times commented that it was £ a fitting recognition of distinguished services to literature and philology extending over the half-century he has lived amongst us ’ It is not clear whether on May 20 Max Muller had as yet received Salisbury’s letter and was keeping the matter confidential even from his wife In any case, he came down to the drawing-room that morning with The Times in hand, and said to his wife ‘Don’t faint’, and handed her the paper The announcement was in three places on the editorial page There was great joy for both, because it was felt that the recognition was exceptional Max Muller knew that he was going to be the only nonpolitical Privy Councillor, and that might cause jealousy among scientific workers But congratulations poured in all day long.
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Max Muller was duly grateful He wrote to Sir Robert Collins, Secretary to the Duchess of Albany £ I am really quite upset I had so little expected anything of the kind, and it is, of course, far too much However, it shows the Queen’s very kind heart I confess there always was something bitter when I received so many favours from other countries, and nothing from the country of my choice and love One enemy can do more harm than many friends can mend ’ What he felt no less strongly was the death of those friends who would have rejoiced most at the event
His only surviving daughter Beatrice was greatly pleased, but she was not forgetful of her mother and brother So she wrote ‘Dear Daddy P C , I suppose now they will soon make you a baronet which would be nice for Billy and Mama, I am so sorry this gives her nothing
Though Max Muller’s life was despaired of during his serious illness in the autumn of 1899, was sufficiently recovered in the next spring to give his friends and family an impression of renewed vitality It was during this intermezzo of energy that he carried on his vigorous polemics with Mommsen over the Boer War He was also receiving many visitors A professor from Vienna, after visiting him at his home, wrote about him in a German paper ‘He keeps his Oxford home hospitably open for foreign birds of passage, who find their way to Oxford from all corners of the universe,’ Among the visitors at this time were a number of Indian princes, including the Gaekwar of Baroda
At this time he was also interviewed by the representative of a magazine (Hugh W Strong, for the Temple Magazine ), and the account was published in June 1900 Speaking to this interviewer m answer to his questions, Max Muller gave what might be called a valedictory message. I shall quote a few of the questions and answers
Q ‘Your seventy-seventh year, Professor?’
A ‘Yes, and I never felt old until this illness ’
Q ’From which you are making an excellent recovery May I be permitted to ask, what are your literary plans for the future?’
A ‘My work is done All I can do in the future is to look on There is the RigVeda in six large volumes, and The Sacred Books of the East m fifty volumes of translations, my commission from the Oxford University These really form my life’s work Beyond them are numerous other books and translations, my History of Sanskrit
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Literature , my Science of Language , Science of Religion , Science of Mythology , History of Indian Philosophy , etc , while most of my shorter writings are collected in Chips from a German Workshop Now I feel it is high time I drew in my sails — which hitherto have been for ever spread to the favouring gale ’
Q ‘May we next discuss your methods of work?*
A ‘They are very simple When I have nothing to do I work *
Q ‘But your recreations, Professor ^
A ‘Oh* I didn’t want them As soon as I felt exhausted I gave up and rested Absence of occupation is not rest 9 Q ‘And now may I ask what progress y our special studies are making ? t A ‘Most satisfactory on the whole The three mam branches especially well the Science of Language here in Oxford , the Science of Comparative Mythology in Germany, and the Science of Comparative Religions in England The latter is, of course, a subject which naturally appeals to English thought and interest 5 Q ‘A last word as to Oxford, Professor
A ‘Oxford the unchangeable 5 Why, it has simply been revolutionized m appearance and character since I first saw it Fancy, there were no married dons in those days * And now* [He did not tell the interviewer that he was the first married Fellow ] The Vice-Chancellor and heads of houses were little kings If you happened to catch them in good humour at dinner, they would mention your wish at the Hebdomadal Council We have changed all that ’
In the next summer his health declined, and it was soon apparent that he was going At this time a visitor came to his house by a very curious chance, but the visit was symbolic of his life and of its main interest, for the visitor was an Indian Holy Man.
On August 7, 1900, quite early in the morning Mrs Max Muller was told that two Hindus were at the door, and going down she found two strange figures, one dressed in a flowing robe, with his bare feet in slippers, and a turban on his head The other was a much younger man, and could speak a little English He explained that his companion was a most holy Yogin, by name Agamya Yogmdra, who had arrived in England from India a few days ago, and had now hastened to Oxford to meet the only man in England whose name they knew. They were told that Max Muller could not come down before 1 1 o’clock, and so they went away to come back at the time given
From information received later from India, Max Muller came to know that he was a genuine Mahatma, who, as a holy man, had a
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very high position in India, and had mastered all that was to be gained by the ascetic discipline of Hinduism He had braved the voyage to England impelled by the pure desire to impart what he believed to be the highest knowledge, and in his innocence had thought that his name and fame would be so known in England that admiring crowds would meet him in London But at the station he found nobody and was sitting bewildered, when a porter saw the Yogm and his chela (disciple) amid the bundles which contained their food and cooking pots, formed an idea according to his knowledge what sort of persons they might be, and sent them to the Psychic Society, whose members passed them on to Oxford
When he met Muller, Dr Carpenter and Mr Bidder, the Vicar of St Giles, were present Protap Chunder Mozoomdar, the Brahmo leader who was also in England then, arrived soon after as he was invited to spend the day with the Mullers Mozoomdar was in total disgrace with the Yogm, for he had been summoned to the presence in London, but had been unable to go on account of a previous speaking engagement Yogm could not understand how a mere engagement could interfere with his command, and treated Mozoomdar with great severity It amused Mrs Max Muller to observe that Mozoomdar seemed to accept his position without reserve and acknowledge the crime which he had unwittingly committed She did not, of course, know that these Hindu holy men were the equivalents of kings in another dimension of the world, and were absolute monarchs by Divine right in that dimension That was why they were always addressed as Maharaj, great king, by all
Anyhow the interview proceeded Max Muller spoke in Sanskrit unfamiliarly pronounced for the Yogm, and the Yogm spoke English in an imperfect manner and Sanskrit with a pronunciation Muller could not understand The others observed the powerful personality of the teacher He was a tall, strongly built man, with a face of unusual breadth with sunken eyes, a wide, but firmly closed mouth, a resolute chin, all of which spoke of long practices of meditation and self-control
After talking for some time with Muller, he turned to Mr Bidder to denounce the country to which he had come ‘I had come to teach men the subtle enigmas of existence, but England was like a poisonous fruit, fair and attractive to view, but full of deadly juice; there were no good men, no one who wanted to understand knowledge, only in this house have I found a good man and one who knows 9
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It was found that Max Muller was tired out by this difficult conversation, and wanted a little rest before lunch But when he sat at lunch he talked with animation The Yogm would not sit down to eat with them, but remained in the library But they all met again at the coffee-table on the garden terrace Dr Carpenter did not want to overstrain Max Muller, and went away with the Yogm, who in October was sent back to India
While sitting with Max Muller, Dr Carpenter observed that the Yogm was looking fixedly at his host, ‘almost as one who could read the lines of destiny’ Max Muller observed ‘My life is nearly over, I shall never be able to do any more work 5 The Yogm went up to him, placed a hand on either shoulder, looked long and fixedly into Muller’s face, and replied ‘Yes, I see death has come near you, friend He has looked you in the face ’
Mr Bidder recalled this parting in these words T shall never forget the scene on the garden terrace, when this representative of ancient India took a last farewell of India’s friend and champion ’ On October 28, 1900, Max Muller died, and in his condolence letter Anagarika Dharmapala, the Ceylonese Buddhist monk who lived in Calcutta, wrote to Mrs Max Muller T now offer the deepest sympathy of all Buddhists in your bereavement, and I repeat the noble words of our Lord Buddha, which he uttered 2,489 years ago, “Do not grieve at my passing away, since it is natural to die” ’
Conclusion
THE MAN AND THE THINKER
How much of a man’s inner life can remain wholly unperceived even when sufficient information about it has been provided from letters and other intimate papers can be judged from a remark made m a review of Mrs Max Muller’s biography of her husband, published in 1902 The reviewer said
There are no subtle recesses of psychology to be explored in this eminently sane, open, unembarrassed Teutonic nature, certain of himself, his work and the world Such a nature makes for the happiness of its owner, but there is nothing salient or picturesque which the reader’s interest can lay hold of
Though the remark was not made in malice, anything more wide of the mark about Max Muller could not be imagined, because there was enough material in the two volumes of the biography to show, despite a wife’s natural reticence in the presentation of her husband, how complex his personality was
There was greater scope for imperfect understanding during his lifetime, for as seen from the outside his was a career of uninterrupted successes and growing fame. If he had died before Dr Samuel Smiles published his Self-help his example would certainly have been included in the book Success through self-help and perseverance was the most obvious feature of Muller’s life So, reviewing the biography, the Daily Telegraph’s critic wrote with greater appreciation than the other reviewer just quoted ‘His career possesses the dramatic interest of a hard-fought battle, its vicissitudes, its momentary despondency, its rekindled enthusiasm, its final and decisive victory.’
But the account I have given would also show that besides this — an unquestionable achievement because Muller obtained his worldly success by obstinately pursuing the most unworldly and even unpractical ideal — there were other remarkable things in him A man’s life is led at different levels In a notice of the life of Baron Bunsen, his friend and patron, Max Muller himself wrote ‘All really great and honest men may be said to live three lives, there is one life
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which is seen and accepted by the world at large, a man’s outward life , there is the second life which is seen by a man’s most intimate friends, his household life, and there is a third life, seen only by the man himself and by Him who searcheth the heart, which may be called the inner or heavenly life ’
Quoting this passage the distinguished Dutch Arabic scholar, de Goeje, who succeeded to his place in the Institut as Associate Member, said in his eloge that he could speak only about the first aspect of Muller’s life, and he paid him a most handsome tribute It would, however, be wrong to think that the most conspicuous merit would be recognized as such by everybody During his life Max Muller had his share of belittling After his death stones were printed about him which for fear of a contradiction or an action of libel would never have been published before Even very respectable papers carried these tales He has also been disparaged in autobiographical books published in our times when nobody remembers him It was not on the supposed inadequacies of Max Muller’s scholarship that the more piquant dismissal of him was based It was on the attribution to him of ridiculous weaknesses like personal vanity. For example, de Goeje in his eloge said
One of my colleagues at Leyden one day saw me surrounded by Max Muller’s books and expressed his surprise When I informed him that I was preparing myself to write a notice of his life and work he exclaimed ‘Ah* I do not like your Max Muller He was a vam man who was only after his own glory ’ I protested against this judgement, which I have heard pronounced by others
De Goeje added.
It needs the sacred fire to sustain a man in such stupendous activity, only a sincere scientific conviction can create such eloquence Pectus est quod dzsertum facit [It is the heart which makes eloquence ]
All this attribution of vanity, especially in respect to clothes, was known to Mrs Max Muller, and about it she wrote in her biography ‘Some of his critics, who never knew him personally, speak of his vanity, because he dwelt with pleasure and gratitude on the honours and successes that came to him in later life Any really vam man would have shrunk from showing his enjoyment of the good things that fell to him, for fear of being thought vam ’ She explained that to the end of his life Muller showed ‘the child’s pure delight in little
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things, that gave a constant zest to his life, and he had the power of rejoicing in every little luxury and pleasure which he could afford himself 5 The poverty in which his boyhood and youth was passed made him all the more disposed to do so In his school days when he came home in the vacations he did not wear his expensive school boots, but to save them put on the home-made shoes provided for him by his mother
The real test of a man’s character is his uncensored private correspondence and diaries, and I have read a good deal of both from Muller I have not found one passage which shows him different from what he appeared to be in the public eye His was too transparent a nature for any kind of disguise But I have also found that he was not ignorant of the ways of the world, nor disposed to be its victim He had acquired much worldly experience in the course of his early struggles, and in later life he was as much a man of the world as he was a studious recluse Besides, a man of his keen mental powers was not likely to prevent these powers from playing on the life that he saw around himself He gave the benefit of that experience to his son, though he did not always employ it for his own advancement
Many examples of worldly wisdom are found scattered liberally in Max Muller’s correspondence with his son, and they would qualify him as another Polomus or a Victorian Chesterfield. If he wanted to satisfy his penchant for generalization from his experience of the world he could easily have become a writer of maxims like La Rochefoucauld, Vauvenargues, or Chamfort, because there was a vein of sententiousness in him But his interest was elsewhere, and his sententiousness was exhibited differently
Max Muller took life and the world too seriously to be capable of becoming worldly He was very much like the other AngloGerman he so much admired, that is, Prince Albert And he would always repeat to himself, as to his son , — Das Leben ist ernst That made him disinclined even to make life an art As he wrote to his son 6 Das Leben ist erne Kunst , is Goethe’s doctrine, and there is some truth in it also, as long as Kunst implies nothing artful or artificial ’ His moral preoccupation was always dominant in his response to the visual arts, though not to music, which being abstract and absolute was tied up with his religious sentiment So, in painting he felt drawn towards works in which he could see a clear moral content, and this drew him strongly towards the picture of La Canta by
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Andrea del Sarto, whose face he assumed to be that of Andrea’s wife Lucrezia In Florence, as he was passing along a narrow street after seeing the frescoes of Andrea in the Collegio dello Scalzo, he suddenly saw against a wall in one of the shops the face of la Canta with the ram streaming on it — ‘silver grey, placid and perfect And there was the boy holding her hand, and the other boy on her arm, and the third boy hiding behind her dress 5 He bought it for a nothing He thought it might be a contemporary replica, though it was later ascertained to be a nineteenth-century copy
He wrote an essay on the picture, sent copies to his friends Browning and Ruskm, and asked their opinion The writer of ‘Andrea del Sarto, the Perfect Painter’ wrote to him appreciatively, but Ruskm almost snarled out ‘Andrea and his story are alike out of my range of work or care You never find him named by me, during the whole course of my Oxford lectures — nor do I recognize any worth in him but that of a dexterous schoolman I liked your paper extremely — but it seemed to me late in the life of a man of your power to be either first discovering or first asking in what Beauty consists 5 Perhaps in this particular area of Muller’s sensitiveness Ruskm was not far wrong
Religion, morality, and thought where his three preoccupations A disciple of Kant was not likely to be anything but firm in his morality, and so firm that he saw no necessity for revalidating his trust in it by means of criticism, whose application he considered indispensable in the case of religion His respect for morality also made him almost a worshipper of Buddha, more a moral than a religious prophet But, as between religion and intellection, he was throughout given to that ‘dialogue’ or dialectic he so much valued as a method The man of faith in him was unceasingly holding an argument with the man of reason He was as cerebral as he was religious, and though he never perceived it, this perpetuated an unresolved dichotomy in him
As has been noted before, at the end of his life Max Muller set down that he was never troubled by the religious doubts which assailed his distinguished contemporaries, and that he was carried along by the simple Protestant faith which was instilled into him at Dessau by his mother But there was enough evidence in all his writings to show that this was not the whole story for him His works on religion, which constitute the most voluminous part of his immense literary output, was as much communing with himself
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as communication to others He often dwelt on the nature of a child’s faith
‘There is certainly no happier life/ he once wrote, ‘than a life of simple faith , of literal acceptance, of rosy dreams . But can we prevent the light of the sun and noises of the street from waking the happy child from his heavenly dreams ? Nay, is it not our duty to wake the child
Again, ‘There is a difference between the childlike faith of a man (all real faith must be childlike) and the childlike faith of a child The one is Paradise not yet lost, the other Paradise lost but regained The one is right for the child, the other is right for the man ’ (See also pp 277-78 )
Yet again, ‘Who, if he is honest towards himself, could say that the religion of his manhood was the same as that of his childhood, or the religion of his old age the same as the religion of his manhood ? It is easy to deceive ourselves, and to say that the most perfect faith is a childlike faith Nothing can be truer, and the older we grow the more we learn to understand the wisdom of the childlike faith But before we can learn that, we have first to learn another lesson, namely, to put away childish things ’
There it was — the entire motivation of his stupendous inquiry into religion, with its philosophical, scientific, and historical facets But the question arises Where did all this land him ? Did it lead him back to the Paradise of the child Max Muller’s faith, to an acceptance of Christianity ? Some of the basic conclusions about religion to which he arrived would have startled him if he had in him any attachment to the kind of Christian orthodoxy asserted by every Church or denomination of Christianity Here, in his own words, are a few of them
1 The more we study the history of the religions of the world, the clearer it becomes that there is really no religion which could be called an individual religion, in the sense of a religion created, as it were de novo, or lather ab ovo, by one single person This may seem strange, and yet it is really most natural Religion, like language, is everywhere an historical growth, and to invent a completely new religion would be as hopeless a task as to invent a completely new language
2 From a comparative study of religion we shall learn that there hardly is one religion which does not contain some truth, some important truth , truth sufficient to enable those who seek the Lord, and feel after Him, to find Him in their hour of need
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3 A belief in God, in the immortality of the soul, and in a future retribution, can be gained, and not only can be but has been gained, b} the right exercise of human reason alone, without the assistance of xv hat has been called a special revelation
4 If there is one thing which a comparative study of religions places m the clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which ex cry leligion is exposed
5 Of Max Muller’s many pronouncements on Christ I shall cite only two He said that those who depnxed Jesus of His real humanity in order to exalt Him above all humanity were really undoing His w orh Christ came to teach us, not what He was, but what we are He had seen that man, unless he learned himself to be the child of God, was lost Max Muller could see that this would raise a question for the Christian Is not Christ God ? He answered Yes, He is, but in His own sense, not in the Jewish nor in the Greek sense, nor in the sense which so many Christians attach to that article of their faith Christ’s teaching is that we are of God, that there is in us something divine, that we are nothing if we are not that
6 Last of all Max Muller believed that the study of all the religions ot the world, however high or low, however primitive or developed, would enable Christians to appreciate better than ever what they had in their own religion and declared that no one who had not examined patiently and honestly the other religions of the world could know what Christianity really was, or could join with such truth and sincerity in the words of St Paul, ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ *
It is hardly to be wondered that in the light of such opinions incessantly repeated by Max Muller, orthodox Christians would consider him both unChristian and anti-Christian, for certainly these views disregarded, if they did not reject, the whole central kerygma of Christianity as a special dispensation of God for man His wide and catholic inquiry mto all religions gave Max Muller a profound veneration for all religious inclinations and aspirations, and also sympathy and tolerance for them. But it also made him blind to the particularity of Christianity as a religion, and this is surprising in a man of his historical consciousness Not only to Christians but even to non-Christians, if the latter have studied the religion at all, Christianity should appear as a unique religious phenomenon, different even from the two religions to which it was the nearest, namely, Judaism and Islam Christianity does not take its stand on a general concept of God’s relations with man, but on a
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particular act of His for the redemption of man Muller’s concept of Christianity as embodied in his writings almost ignored the ideas of Incarnation, Mediation, Expiation, and Resurrection It made him forget that intolerance of other religions was of the very essence of Christianity The Christian was bound to be even more uncompromising in his attitude to unbelievers than the Muslim or the Communist To make Christianity tolerant of all religious beliefs is to destroy it in its most characteristic aspect
Why was Max Muller led to this position intellectually and ethically, whatever he might have been as a believer ? To begin at the very beginning, that was in obedience to the trend which made its appearance as soon as Christian preachers thought of taking it to the Gentiles They were forced to philosophize in order to justify to the Greeks what was foolishness to them That brought Christianity to an unquiet marriage with reason, to which no other religion had come They kept faith and 1 eason quite apart After that came the entire intellectual tradition created by the Graeco-Roman elements in European culture, with its philosophical as well as scientific sides, which taught that question and analysis are the beginning of knowledge
Relief in examination and revalidation made Max Muller think that even atheism made a contribution of great value to religion and faith ‘There is an atheism’, he wrote, ‘which is unto death, there is another atheism which is the life-blood of all true faith It is the power of giving up what, in our best, in our most honest, moments, we know to be no longer true , it is the readiness to replace the less perfect, however dear, however sacred it may have been to us, by the more perfect, however much it may be detested, as yet, by the world It is the true self-surrender, the true self-sacrifice, the truest trust m truth, the truest faith Without that atheism religion would long ago have become a petrified hypocrisy, without that atheism no new religion, no reform, no reformation, no resuscitation would ever have been possible, without that atheism no new life is possible for any one of us ’
This is putting faith in reason above faith in dogma or even belief From the religious point of view this application of the intellect is like Abraham’s sacrifice of his son to his Lord But Max Muller does not seem to have realized that the sacrifice would have run its course except for the intervention of the Lord Any thoroughgoing application of reason to faith can only destroy the latter So
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Christian faith, incapable of existing without reason, had to propound a new view of reason Le cosm a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas To say Credo ul mtelhgam is typically Christian, to reverse the formula and say Intellego nt credam is also partly Christian, but only on the assumption that understanding is only an instrument of believing Taken without this limitation and reservation, the intellect could only destroy religious life Max Muller was certainly conscious of that too, for he wrote ‘True religion, that is practical, active, living religion, has little or nothing to do with logical or metaphysical quibbles Practical religious life, is a new life, a life in the sight of God, and it springs from what may be called a new birth 9
Despite this, the duality which divided him between faith and reason persisted, and this was due not only to the hold on him of the intellectual tradition of the Greeks taken over by the Christian apologists, but also to something innate in him, to his temperament, which was Apollmian and not Dionysiac This distinction is seen not only in the antithesis between the man of action and the man of contemplation, but also among the intellectuals themselves Some of them can immerse themselves in their experience and project their response to it in a manner which in spite of its logical trappings is intuitive, and is therefore akm to prophetic utterances These are the Dionysiacs of thought, and Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, or even Freud might be classed as such Against them stand the intellectuals who want to reduce experience to order, and present even the suprarational as rational, or at any rate in a form which would be accessible to human intelligence Kant was of that type, the Apollmian among thinkers Muller, the disciple of Kant was also bound to be such
So, he was as religious as he was philosophical, and as philosophical as he was religious He wanted to bring the two as near as possible. As he wrote
Religion is not philosophy, but there never has been a religion, and there never can be, which is not based on philosophy, and does not presuppose the philosophical notions of the people The highest aim towards which all philosophy strives, is and will always remain the idea of God, and it was this idea which Christianity grasped in the Platonic sense, and presented to us most clearly in its highest form, in the Fourth Gospel
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This made him put forward his dialectic concept of the evolution of religion In the very first senes of lectures on the ‘science of religion’ which he delivered in 1870 he said
From first to last religion is oscillating between two opposite poles, and it is only if the attraction of one of the two poles becomes too strong, that healthy movement ceases, and stagnation and decay set in If religion cannot accommodate itself on the one side to the capacity of children, or if on the other side it fails to satisfy the requirements of men, it has lost its vitality, and it becomes either mere superstition or mere philosophy
It was natural therefore that he should accept and exalt the idea of Logos, both in its Greek and Christian form As embodied in the Fourth Gospel, it revealed to him not only the unbreakable bond between word and thought, but also their continuation as the Son of God and, finally, Jesus
In this aspect of Muller’s speculations about religion he was a participant in religious experience, and, in an age which is irreligious (not anti-religious) and faithless, not much interest is likely to be felt in his views on religion as a phenomenon of human experience with an intrinsic value for all men. Nobody can say now whether that kind of interest will come back In the meanwhile, there is interest in religion as a phenomenon to be observed scientifically from the outside Max Muller in another aspect of his inquiry into religion was, or at least claimed to be, a scientist. In fact, comparative study of ancient religions scientifically was very largely his creation, and in spite of the presence in them of philosophical or devotional utterances, he called all his books ‘Science of Religion’ m its varied aspects
First of all, according to him, religion, like all other objects of scientific inquiry, was based on sense perception As he put it, ‘religion, if it is to hold its place as a legitimate element of our consciousness, must like all other knowledge, begin with experience’ Secondly, he thought, religion was based on an innate urge m man for the Infinite. So the most general definition he could give of religion was this ‘Religion consists in the perception of the infinite under such manifestations as are able to influence the moral character of man ’ He admitted that this definition of religion covered only its origin, but explained that ‘if we once admit a continuity in the historical growth of religion, the same definition ought
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to remain applicable to all later developments’ In any case, he was not readv to surrender the claim science had on religion, and so he wrote ‘To those who maintain that religion is chiefly modus cognoscendi Deum, a way of knowing God, we should reply that there is no conceptual knowledge which is not based first of all on perceptual knowledge ’
I shall not discuss here the merits of Max Muller’s scientific conclusions about religion, but only describe one of its controversial aspects The workers who followed him in the study of comparative religion began to poke fun at him, and especially at his solar myth The more serious charge was that he was idealizing early religions too much for a scientist
Now, this challenge came mostly from the Christian school at first and then from the anthropological school To take the Christian view first he said that the ancient non-Christian religions of the world, though professed by highly civilized peoples, had been most unfairly treated by most historians and theologians Every act of the life of their founders which showed that they were but men had been eagerly seized and judged without mercy , every doctrine that was not carefully guarded had been misinterpreted and distorted, every act of worship that differed from the Christian had been held up to ridicule Hence, he declared, there had arisen a complete misapprehension of the real character of ancient religions, and Christianity itself had been tom away from its ‘sacred context of the history of the world’
With the emergence of the anthropological inquiry into religion this attack was resumed from another direction the anthropological Blucher joined the theological Wellington to bring about a twilight of the ancient gods Max Muller had no quarrel with anthropology wheie it was applicable But he would not admit that it was applicable to the ancient civilized religions As he had said, Frazer worked his mine, and he worked his His method of dealing with the ancient religions was philological and historical , he would not admit that the notions derived from the observation of the religion of contemporary primitive peoples could be read back into the old religions
As it happens, this quarrel has recently been witnessed apropos of a reinterpretation of ancient Roman religion offered by the English Latinist, Rose In the light of the description of the religion of the Melanesians by Codrmgton he has equated their mana with
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the numen of the Romans, and represented Roman religion as manaistic in origin, and even character Georges Dumezil, who in our time is continuing the historical and philological method of Muller in his monumental studies of the religion of the IndoEuropeans, has vigorously contested this ‘pnmitivizmg 7 of ancient civilized religions, raising the question Numen or god? He observes very cogently that £ in all religions, even the highest, one finds that in the same epoch and in the same society the faithful who practise, so far from placing their practices on the same level, have a wide gamut of interpretations ranging from pure automatism to the most unfettered mysticism?’ He cites the opinion of a fellowworker who has written on Yoga that the manipulations of the holy are necessarily ambivalent, at times taking place on the religious plane and at others on the magical without any awareness on the part of the manipulator as to whether he is performing an act of worship or a magical operation Dumezil also points out that the linguistic and material resources for embodying the invisible are limited, and therefore from the words and the apparatus of a cult no one can be sure whether he is seeing devotion or magic This is amplifying the argument of Muller against the application of anthropological methods to civilized religions William James also warned students of religion against taking the origins of a religion too literally in assessing it in its full development
Max Muller would have nothing to do with this ‘dis-idealization 7 of religion He was also led to idealize the ancient religions on account of his respect and love for mankind Some of his sayings illustrate this strikingly ‘Human nature is divine nature modified 7 ‘God comes to us in the likeness of man — there is no other God 7 ‘Next to our faith in God there is nothing so essential to the healthy growth of our whole being as an unshaken faith in man . 7 So, all his interpretations of religion and mythology, based on his love for man, can be called his Canticles, for in spite of their scientific and philosophical form there is a fervour and vocal exultation in them which come only from religion.
Meanwhile, what had happened to his childlike faith? There is no doubt that he cherished it. But there are no records of it in his feelings and thoughts set down in late life Even in his most intimate confessions there is no trace of his radiant faith. They only show a stoical resignation to God’s will. Wie Gott will was inscribed on his tombstone
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Was it his stupendous intellectual effort to understand man and his religion which had brought him to this state ? His personal mood was very much like that of the Preacher Tn much knowledge is much grief and he that mcreaseth knowledge mcreaseth sorrow 5 Perhaps, imitating Plato, one might apply a Greek fable to the quest for knowledge, especially for scientific knowledge of religion and love Blameless Actaeon was torn by dogs for having inadvertently caught a glimpse of the bathing Artemis The Artemis of life perhaps visits those who pry into her mysteries with the same punishment Freud and Havelock Ellis, coming after Max Muller, seem to indicate that
In any case, his colossal labour thoroughly tired out Max Muller His last words were, T am tired 9 As in a dying man the bodily sensation is paramount, these words perhaps should not be taken too seriously But they echoed the refrain of his last years — that he was very tired In the letter to his son written just over a year before his death (quoted on page 252) he said that he wanted rest but added that so far as his life was concerned it might be a hopeless fight, it could hardly be otherwise.
The same letter contains what might be called his last testament T am prepared to go,’ he wrote, fit would be strange if I were not, with such a long life behind me, and most of it devoted to religious and philosophical questions And having lived this long life, so full of light, having been led so kindly by a fatherly hand through all storms and struggles, why should I be afraid when I have to make the last step ? I have finished all my work, and what is more I see that it will be carried on by others, by stronger and younger men I have never piled mud in the market, I gladly left that to others, but I have laid a foundation that will last, and though people don’t see the blocks buried in a river, it is on these unseen blocks that the bridge rests I cannot do any more work 9
That was as much as any scholar or scientist could say of his work Max Muller was a pioneer and explorer, and he will be remembered as such But he was also a man, and in our idea of him as such we need not assess the value of his life as only relative