Part 6

Figure 17 is but very slightly different from the preceding one: the ventral column is simply strengthened on its lower surface by the lower ventral lobule. The position of this lobule is interesting to note. We have already mentioned that each ganglion is divided into two halves by a column of conjunctival tissue, one anterior and the other posterior. In Section 17 we see the granulated projection of the ventral portion of this conjunctival column. In order to simplify it we have shown no conjunctival tissue in our illustration. We may nevertheless notice, that the nerve-cells at the point marked _c. c._ seem to separate one from the other, and show a triangular space between them, filled with conjunctival cells. If the segment had not been cut so obliquely, (and this obliqueness in the sections is almost unavoidable when dealing with such very small organs,) we should also perceive on the dorsal line of the section the projection of the dorsal part of the conjunctival column; in fact we shall see this projection in the figure which follows. The presence of the conjunctival column separates, as we have said, each ganglion into two parts, one anterior the other posterior. These portions are not at all symmetrical. We see in Section 17 that the lower ventral lobule is found only in the anterior part. Finally from the ventral column rises an important fasciculus of ascending fibres, which we have already seen in the horizontal diagrams; it is difficult for us to ascertain what these fibres are. In the 18th and last section we approach nearer the median line. The ventral column at this level has the appearance of being divided into two trunks. The ventral connective filaments are clearly seen upon its upper surface. Among the dorsal connective filaments the middle one alone remains visible and receives a certain number of fibres from the ascending fasciculus.

To complete our description let us glance at the series of transverse sections. In Figure 19 the two crural lobules have not yet united and are not yet merged into the dorsal-ventral lobe. This junction does not take place until we come to Figure 20. Here, at this level, we see in addition the circular segment of the two ventral columns, which by their dark color are sharply outlined against the remainder of the fibrillar substance. To the right and left of these two columns we perceive small masses of dotted substance; we merely call attention to them and shall not describe them. Figure 21 furnishes no noteworthy modifications of the preceding. We simply see a few cells of the periphery sending out their prolongations into the fibrillar substance. The point at which they thus penetrate it has already been indicated in Figure 15. In Figure 22 we have a section of several dorsal connective filaments; among others a lower root of the crural nerve is here seen to pass along the ventral surface of the fibrillar substance without penetrating into the crural lobule. Does there exist an upper root of the same nerve, which follows the upper surface of the dotted substance? We do not dare to decide the question. One thing is certain, and that is that if the nerve does exist it is accompanied along its path by a great number of widely ramified tracheæ, of which we see a drawing in _tr._ In the three figures which follow (23, 24, 25) the ventral column presents an interesting series of modifications. First of all, in Figure 23, it is surrounded by the lower ventral lobule, of which the two masses are in a lateral position, and whose commissures pass underneath the column. We see in the same Figure 23 the two lower roots of the crural nerve, advancing towards the column. In the 24th section the two roots have reached the column, and two other nerves cross the crural lobule; doubtless their destination is the lower dorsal connective filaments, but of this we have no clear indication. In the 24th section two other crural roots also enter the lower ventral lobule. This section is very favorable for the examination of the ascending fasciculus which we have already noticed in the longitudinal sections. It seems to us certain that this fasciculus terminates in the middle dorsal connective filament. Its origin is more uncertain. It seems to spring from the ventral column, or else to come from crural roots which, after having traversed the crural lobule, reascend towards the dorsal lobe of the ganglion, describing a curve exteriorily concave. It is possible that this ascending fasciculus has both these origins. The 26th and last section shows us the ventral column on a larger scale; the two columns being distinct from each other, though united at the lower extremity by a commissure. The _ensemble_ of the figure strikingly reminds one of a section of the abdominal ganglion.

Here our description ends. We have not sought to follow up every fibre in all its details, nor to describe completely the anatomy of each organ. Our intention has merely been to give a synthetic notion of a nervous ganglion. Subsequent studies made on other ganglia will demonstrate the general application of this idea.

ALFRED BINET.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] For the cuts, see the plates in the Appendix of this number.

HINDU MONISM.

WHO WERE ITS AUTHORS, PRIESTS OR WARRIORS?

Among all the forms of government class government is the worst. Carthage was governed by merchants, and the mercantile spirit of its policy led finally to the destruction of the city. Sparta was governed by warriors, and in spite of the glory of Thermopylæ it was doomed to stagnation. India was governed by priests, and the weal of the nation was sacrificed with reckless indifference to their interests. It appears that for the welfare of the community the harmonious co-operation of all classes is not only desirable but also indispensable.

Yet it is often claimed that mankind is greatly indebted to nations or states ruled by class government, for having worked out the particular occupation of the ruling class to a perfection which otherwise it would not have reached. This is at least doubtful.

Carthage was eager to establish monopolies, but she contributed little to the higher development of commerce and trade among mankind.

Sparta raised brave men, but was not progressive, even in the science of war, and was worsted by so weak an adversary as Thebes. Modern strategists could learn something from Epaminondas, but little, if anything, from the Lacedæmonians.

Priestcraft has attained to a power in India unparalleled in the history of other nations, and it is no exaggeration to say that priest-rule was the ruin of the country. Yet the wisdom of the Brahmans has become proverbial. Their philosophy is praised as original and profound, and it is well known that the first monistic world-conception was thought out in ancient India. But we shall see later on what the real share of the Brahmans in this great work has been.

In the very earliest ages of Hindu antiquity, revealed to us in the songs of the Rig-veda, we meet with priests who claimed the power of making sacrifices to the gods in a manner especially acceptable to them, and who thus rose to great power, influence, and wealth. To this ancient period of Hindu history we can trace the origin of the Hindu castes, essentially a result of priestly egotism, and which up to this day has weighed down the Indian people like a nightmare. The organisation of the priestly class into an exclusive, privileged body, as well as the final development of the castes, did not, however, take place until the time represented by the second period of the ancient Hindu literature; by the literature, that is to say, of the Yajur-vedas or the Vedas of the sacrificial formulæ, and the Brâhmanas and Sûtras, both of which describe the sacrificial ceremonies, the former with, the latter without theological comments. The contents of these works illustrate the origin of the Hindu hierarchy and castes; but it is often necessary to read between the lines. The greatest authority on this rich literature, Prof. A. Weber, of Berlin, in the tenth volume of the series “Hindu Studies” which he edits, has published his inquiries concerning this subject in a very learned treatise, entitled “Collectanea über die Kastenverhältnisse in der Brâhmana und Sûtra,” of which I have made considerable use in the following pages.

In these books the Brahmans assert their claims with startling candor. In several passages—to begin with the most striking feature—they announce themselves as real gods wandering on earth. “There are two kinds of gods,” it is said, “the true gods and the learned Brahmans, who recite the Veda.” “The Brahman represents all gods.” “He is the god of gods.” This is perhaps the most remarkable instance of priestly arrogance in all history. Thus it cannot at all surprise us that the Brahmans, as earthly gods, placed themselves above king and nobility; but it appears rather strange that the kings and warriors should have allowed to them the first place in the government. But as a matter of fact, they did do so and were compelled to do so. From mysterious legends in the great Hindu epic poem we infer, that bloody wars have been waged for supremacy, in which the nobility was defeated.

The legends of this epos are thus important additions to the sources with which we are concerned. This struggle, which the Brahmans in all likelihood caused to be fought out for them by the great masses of the people, has been ascribed to the warriors having robbed the priests of the treasures which the latter had acquired by the performance of the sacrifices; and this part of the legend is so highly probable that we cannot treat it as a pure myth, especially if we take into consideration the circumstances of those times. It was the first attempt at secularisation in the history of the world, and the results were very disastrous to those who were then in secular power.

The Brahmans did not establish a social hierarchy or ecclesiastical ranks, nor did they participate in the government, except that the king was bound to employ a Brahman as Purohita or house-priest, who occupied as such the position of prime minister. If, however, they succeeded in dominating the nobility and the whole people, it was principally on account of their greater knowledge, of which they boasted, and especially on account of the sacrificial arts, by the proper exercise of which in those times, all favors could be obtained from the gods. For a duly performed sacrifice, which would last weeks, months, nay, years, the Brahmans charged of course a high fee. A fee of ten thousand oxen was prescribed for a certain ceremony, a hundred thousand for another one, and a later teacher of ritualism charged 240,000 for the same service. And this was not yet the climax of priestly avarice, which—to use an expression of Professor Weber—indulges in veritable orgies in these books. After one has gone through the endless description of a ceremony, one finds at the end the remark that the whole sacrifice has no effect, unless the proper fee be paid to the priest. And—to use a term of modern life—lest competition should reduce the prices or spoil the business, a rule was established, that no one should take a fee which another one had refused. (Weber, p. 54.)

The sacrificial rituals, so trying and tedious for us, are the only literary production of these dull centuries before the rising of philosophical speculation, and the great historical importance they possess is simply due to the light they throw on the moral depravity of the Brahmans as a class.

The following fact will fully show to what extent sexual debaucheries were indulged in. The priest was enjoined, by a special rule, not to commit adultery with the wife of another during a particularly holy ceremony. But he who could not practice continence, was allowed to expiate his sin by an offering of milk to Varuna and Mitra.

Numerous passages in the books on ritualism furnish us interesting illustrations of the great indulgence which the Brahmans had for each other’s weaknesses. The officiating priest is taught how to proceed during the sacrifice, if he wants to wrong the man who employs and pays him, or how to deviate from the prescribed rules, if he wants to rob his employer of his seeing, hearing, children, property, or position. The lack of confidence that resulted is best illustrated by a ceremony, the introduction of which, at the beginning of the sacrifice, became gradually necessary. By a solemn oath the officiating minister and the client bound themselves not to injure each other during the performance of the holy act. Consequently, the strange notions of right, which the Brahmans had in those times, will not surprise us. “Murder of any one but a Brahman is no murder.” “An arbitrator must decide in favor of the Brahman and not in favor of his opponent, if the latter is not a Brahman.” Such maxims are laid down in the texts with shameless insolence.

It is plain that the caste system greatly contributed to increase the power and influence of the priests, because in a country where the people are divided into classes, the priest always succeeds in inciting at his wish the one against the other.

After the Brahmans came as second caste the Kshattriyas (literally: the ruling class, i. e., king, nobility, soldiers); and as third caste the Vaisyas (the bulk of the people: farmers, merchants, etc.). The conquered non-Aryan aborigines were foreordained by the gods to serve the Aryan castes and especially the Brahmans. They were called Súdras (serfs) and had neither civil nor religious rights. “The Súdra is the servant of others; he can be cast out or killed.” By this humane maxim were the Brahmans guided in their conduct towards the aborigines.

With such a state of things, as it appears in the old books, the priesthood ought to have been well pleased. But the Brahmans were not; they desired still greater advantages and carried out the caste system to a most absurd extent. The result is embodied in the famous law-book of Manu, the exact date of which we do not yet know, but which must be placed at the beginning of our era. The condition of things of which I shall now speak, was accordingly developed during the last centuries before Christ. Though we may suppose that some rules of this code have remained a mere theory and have never been carried out, there remains enough to show the social life of those times in a poor light. Köppen, in the first chapters of his book on Buddhism, has severely but justly judged the social organisation, as it appears in Manu’s law-book; but as the age of this code was overrated at his time, he was led to one erroneous conclusion: he attributes the historical process, of which we speak, to the period before Buddha, while it really took place after Buddha: L. von Schröder, in his work “Indian Literature and History,” in the twenty-ninth lecture, gives us a good view of those times.

Different passages in Manu’s code show us that the claim of the Brahmans to divinity had not decreased in the course of the centuries. “The Brahmans are to be venerated at all times, as they are the highest divinity.” “By his very origin the Brahman is a god, even to the gods.”

The many practical privileges they enjoyed were of still greater value. They were exempt from taxation under all circumstances, “even if the king should starve.” For the greatest crimes they could not be executed or chastised, nor was their property liable to confiscation, while at the same time the criminal law was very harsh towards the other castes and especially towards the Súdras. The penalties increased proportionately: the lower the caste to which the criminal belonged, the higher the punishment; and the fines also increased in proportion to the rank of the caste to which the injured man belonged. The money-lender was allowed to exact (monthly) two per cent. of a Brahman, three of a Kshattriya, four of a Vaisya, five of a Súdra. All these laws show how the Brahmans understood the art of advancing their interests. The Súdra was by the code deprived of all rights. “The Brahman may consider him as a slave and is therefore entitled to take his property, as the property of the slave belongs to the master.” “The Súdra shall not acquire wealth, even if he be in a position to do so, as such conduct gives offense to the Brahman.”

But all these things are harmless when compared with the principles by which the Brahmans reduced to the most miserable of lives numberless human creatures who had committed no wrong except that their origin did not agree with the political scheme of the priests. Formerly it had been lawful for the members of the three Aryan castes, after having married a girl of the same caste, to take other wives of a lower caste besides, and no disgrace attached to their children. The son of a Brahman and a Vaisya—or even of a Súdra woman—was therefore a Brahman. But this was no longer the case under the code of Manu.

If the parents belonged to different castes, the children did not follow either father or mother, but they formed a mixed caste and the law distinctly regulates their occupations and trades. This theory gave birth to a great number of mixed castes, who were more or less despised. And the social standing of many of them grew still worse on account of an absurd maxim which degraded the Indian people to the level of grass and plants. Good seed in a bad soil gives of course a poorer return than in good soil; still the crop is endurable. But weed introduced into good soil produces weed abundantly. According to this theory of the Brahmans the children were below the father, if he had married a wife of a higher caste. The lowest and most execrable creature therefore is the son of a Súdra and a Brahman woman. The destiny of a Súdra was of course hard and unhappy, but the misery of the offspring of such a marriage, of the Chandâla, defies all description. “He shall live far from the abodes of other men and bear signs by which everybody can recognise and avoid him, as his contact pollutes. Only in daytime shall he be admitted into the villages, as then people can avoid him. He shall possess but common animals like dogs and donkeys, eat out of broken plates, put on the dresses of the dead, etc. They were compelled to serve as executioners. To the utmost degree of contempt and misery has the proud Brahman reduced these poor creatures.” (Schröder, pp. 423-424.)

But the Chandâla was not the last in the Brahmanic scale, which suppressed all dignity in human nature; his offspring, though he had only a wife of the Súdra caste, was necessarily still below him. Thus originated a great number of mixed castes, one more despised than the other, and despising one another. Most of these outcasts take their names from the Indian aborigines and are thus placed on the same level with the most contemptible tribes. Some of the things I have cited about the mixed castes, may have been merely a theory of the Brahmans; however, the actual existence of classes of people reduced by the clergy to a sort of animal life, has been sufficiently verified by foreign travellers.

In modern times the separation of the people has been going on very rapidly; so much so, that nearly every trade or profession now forms a caste of its own, having no social intercourse with, nor patriotic feelings for the other castes. This condition of things is due to the influence of the Brahmans, for it has grown out of the social order they have founded.

It is not my task to arraign the Brahmans for the sins they have committed; but simply to illustrate to my readers, how little they cared for and had at heart the interests of their people. One will, upon the whole, feel inclined to denounce the selfishness and immorality of the Brahmans, but on the other hand will acknowledge with admiration the intellectual work they have done, and forgive them much for the profound thoughts with which they have enriched their country and the whole world. Is it not the wisdom of the Brahmans that has given to the word India a sound that stirs the hearts of all to whom the struggle for the highest truth appears as the highest phenomenon in the history of civilisation? But suppose it can be shown that the greatest of all the wisdom of the Brahman, the monistic doctrine of the All-in-One, which has had the greatest influence on the intellectual life of modern times, was not discovered by them?

Before I enter on this question, of the greatest importance from an historical point of view, I will give a short sketch of the period of Indian history in which this doctrine was established.

For centuries the Brahmans had heaped sacrifice on sacrifice and multiplied symbolical explanations without end. All this distinctly bore the stamp of priestly sophistry. Suddenly higher thoughts arise. The learning handed down by tradition and the sacrificial system are, it is true, not altogether abandoned; the mind, however, is no longer satisfied with the mysteries of the sacrifices, but aims at higher and more sublime truth. The age of intellectual darkness is followed by a new era, the characteristic of which is the ambition to solve the problems of life and to understand the relation of the individual to the absolute. All the efforts of the human mind are now bent on solving the question of the eternal Unity, from which all phenomena have emanated and which every one perceives within his own self. It is the age of the Upanishads, those famous books, which, as soon as they were known in Europe, filled all scholars with wild enthusiasm and admiration. I refer only to the old Upanishads, that date from the eighth to the sixth century B. C., not to the great number of books of the same name, but not of the same value—there are over 200 of them—which appeared after the Christian era. The Upanishads reveal the struggle of the mind to reach the highest truth. Though they indulge occasionally in strange speculations, still the idea of Brahma, of the universal soul, of the absolute, of the thing in itself, is the ever-recurring subject of their thoughts, which culminate in the idea that the Atman, the inner self of man, is naught but the eternal and endless Brahma. A wonderful pathos animates the language of the Upanishads and testifies to the sublime feelings in which the thinkers of those times sought the great mystery of existence. They look for all kinds of expressions, metaphors and figures, in order to couch in words what cannot be described by words. We read for instance in the venerable Brihadâranyaka Upanishad: “That which lives on the earth, but is different from the earth, that which is the moving power of the earth, that is your Self, the inner immortal ruler.” The same is predicated of water, fire, ether, wind, sun, moon, and stars; and then the chapter ends as follows: “Unseen, he sees; unheard, he hears; unminded, he minds; unknown, he knows. There is none that sees but he; there is none that hears but he; there is none that minds but he; there is none that knows but he. He is thy soul, the inner ruler. Whatever is different from him, is perishable.”