Doubtless the inspiration imparted by Socrates to a disciple in
mere intellect his superior, and the resulting moral and religious
suggestions abounding in the Dialogues, did much to impel the current of
religious evolution toward that spiritual aspect of the Infinite All
which fascinated some of the Neo-Platonists, and received its most
splendid exposition from Spinoza. But the conditions imposed by
necessary brevity compel me to pass by those classic names with this
acknowledgment, and to hasten toward the fuller revelation of Pantheism
as a religion.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: Some scholars think they can trace Christian, influences in
the exceptionally late Bhagavad Gita, hereafter quoted. But it is a
disputed point; and certainly in the case of the Vedas and pre-Christian
literature arising out of them even Jewish influence was impossible.]
[Footnote 3: As imperious brevity excludes full explanation, I must
content myself with a reference to _The Religion of the Universe_, pp.
152-5. London: Macmillan & Co.]
[Footnote 4: According to the late Max Mueller, with whom Prof. T.W. Rhys
Davids agrees, the word Upanishad is equivalent to our word "sitting" or
"session"; only that it is usually confined to a sitting of master and
pupil.]
[Footnote 5: _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. i. p. 92. The immediately
following quotations are from the same Upanishad.]
[Footnote 6: "The gods of ocean, air and fire, and the judge of the
lower regions respectively" (Rev.
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