As for the tenets of the Brahmans, we are not so much concerned to know what doctrines they held, as that they were held by any.  We can tolerate all philosophies, Atomists, Pneumatologists, Atheists, Theists,—­Plato, Aristotle, Leucippus, Democritus, Pythagoras, Zoroaster, and Confucius.  It is the attitude of these men, more than any communication which they make, that attracts us.  Between them and their commentators, it is true, there is an endless dispute.  But if it comes to this, that you compare notes, then you are all wrong.  As it is, each takes us up into the serene heavens, whither the smallest bubble rises as surely as the largest, and paints earth and sky for us.  Any sincere thought is irresistible.  The very austerity of the Brahmans is tempting to the devotional soul, as a more refined and nobler luxury.  Wants so easily and gracefully satisfied seem like a more refined pleasure.  Their conception of creation is peaceful as a dream.  “When that power awakes, then has this world its full expansion; but when he slumbers with a tranquil spirit, then the whole system fades away.”  In the very indistinctness of their theogony a sublime truth is implied.  It hardly allows the reader to rest in any supreme first cause, but directly it hints at a supremer still which created the last, and the Creator is still behind increate.

Nor will we disturb the antiquity of this Scripture; “From fire, from air, and from the sun,” it was “milked out.”  One might as well investigate the chronology of light and heat.  Let the sun shine.  Menu understood this matter best, when he said, “Those best know the divisions of days and nights who understand that the day of Brahma, which endures to the end of a thousand such ages, [infinite ages, nevertheless, according to mortal reckoning,] gives rise to virtuous exertions; and that his night endures as long as his day.”  Indeed, the Mussulman and Tartar dynasties are beyond all dating.  Methinks I have lived under them myself.  In every man’s brain is the Sanscrit.  The Vedas and their Angas are not so ancient as serene contemplation.  Why will we be imposed on by antiquity?  Is the babe young?  When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man; it is more ancient than Nestor or the Sibyls, and bears the wrinkles of father Saturn himself.  And do we live but in the present?  How broad a line is that?  I sit now on a stump whose rings number centuries of growth.  If I look around I see that the soil is composed of the remains of just such stumps, ancestors to this.  The earth is covered with mould.  I thrust this stick many aeons deep into its surface, and with my heel make a deeper furrow than the elements have ploughed here for a thousand years.  If I listen, I hear the peep of frogs which is older than the slime of Egypt, and the distant drumming of a partridge on a log, as if it were the pulse-beat of the summer air.  I raise my fairest and freshest flowers in the old mould.  Why,