Pride

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 143 of 174 · 20 per page

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  Putting a stopper on the 'gush' will only to a limited extent cause more 'real' activities to take its place; in the main it will simply produce listlessness. On the other hand, the ponderous and bilious 'slumbering volcano,' let him repress the expression of his passions as he will, will find them expire if they get no vent at all; whilst if the rare occasions multiply which he deems worthy of their outbreak, he will find them grow in intensity as life proceeds. On the whole, I cannot see that this third objection carries any weight. If our hypothesis is true, it makes us realize more deeply than ever how much our mental life is knit up with our corporeal frame, in the strictest sense of the term. Rapture, love, ambition, indignation, and pride, considered as feelings, are fruits of the same soil with the grossest bodily sensations of pleasure and of pain. But the reader will remember that we agreed at the outset to affirm this only of what we then called the 'coarser' emotions, and that those inward states of emotional sensibility which appeared devoid at first sight of bodily results should be left out of our account. We must now say a word or two about these latter feelings, the 'subtler' emotions, as we then agreed to call them. THE SUBTLER EMOTIONS. These are the moral, intellectual, and æsthetic feelings. Concords of sounds, of colors, of lines, logical consistencies, teleological fitnesses, affect us with a pleasure that seems ingrained in the very form of the representation itself, and to borrow nothing from any reverberation surging up from the parts below the brain. The Herbartian psychologists have distinguished feelings due to the form in which ideas may be arranged. A mathematical demonstration may be as 'pretty,' and an act of justice as 'neat,' as a drawing or a tune, although the prettiness and neatness seem to have nothing to do with sensation.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Becket was educated at Merton Abbey in Surrey and in the schools of London. At a later period he attended the universities of Paris, Bologna, and Auxerre, and studied there chiefly civil and canon law, without attaining to special eminence in learning. He was not a scholar, but a statesman and an ecclesiastic. He made his mark in the world and the Church by the magnetism of his personality. He was very handsome, of tall, commanding presence, accomplished, brilliant, affable, cheerful in discourse, ready and eloquent in debate, fond of hunting and hawking, and a proficient in all the sports of a mediaeval cavalier. He could storm the strongest castle and unhorse the stoutest knight. Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury, 1139–1161, took him into his service, 1142; sent him to Bologna, where Gratian then taught canon law; employed him in delicate missions with the papal court; made him archdeacon (1154), and bestowed upon him other profitable benefices, as the provostship of Beverly, a number of churches, and several prebends. When charged, as archbishop, with ingratitude to the king, who had raised him from "poverty," he proudly referred to this accumulation of preferments, and made no attempt to abolish the crying evil of plurality, which continued till the Reformation. Many a prosperous ecclesiastic regarded his parishes simply as sources of income, and discharged the duties by proxy through ignorant and ill-paid priests. King Henry II., 1154–1189, in the second year of his reign, raised Becket, then only thirty-seven years of age, at Theobald’s instance, to the chancellorship of England. The chancellor was the highest civil dignitary, and held the custody of nearly all the royal grants and favors, including vacant bishoprics, abbacies, chaplaincies, and other ecclesiastical benefices.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  These controversies, and those upon Predestination and the Eucharist, and his persecution of Gottschalk, elsewhere treated at length,1387 have tended to obscure Hincmar’s just reputation as a statesman. Yet he was unquestionably the leader in the West Frankish kingdom, and by, his wisdom and energy preserved the state during a sadly disordered time. His relations with Louis the Pious, Charles the Bald and Carloman were friendly. He crowned several queens of the Carolingian family, and in 869 Charles the Bald. He also solemnized their marriages. In 859 he headed the German delegation to Louis, and in 860 conducted the peace deliberations at Coblenz. He took the side of Charles the Bald in his fight with Rome, and in 871 wrote for him a very violent letter to Pope Hadrian II.1388 It may be said that in state politics he was more successful than in church politics. He preserved his king from disgrace, and secured his independence, but he was unable to secure for himself the papal sanction at all times, and the much coveted honor of the primacy of France which John VIII., in 876, gave to Ansegis, archbishop of Sens. One of the most important facts about these Hincmarian controversies is that in them for the first time the famous pseudo-Isidorian decretals1389 are quoted; and that by all parties. Whether Hincmar knew of their fraudulent character may well be questioned, for that he had little if any critical ability is proved by his belief in two literary forgeries, an apocryphal tale of the birth of the Virgin, and a homily upon her assumption,1390 attributed to Jerome. The fraud was exposed by Ratramnus. His use of the decretals was arbitrary. He quoted them when they would help him, as against the pope in contending for the liberty of the Frankish Church. He ignored them when they opposed his ideas, as in his struggle with his nephew, because in their original design they asserted the independence of bishops from their metropolitans. Hincmar was not only a valiant fighter, but also a faithful shepherd. He performed with efficiency all the usual duties of a bishop, such as holding councils, hearing complaints, settling difficulties, laying plans and carrying out improvements. He paid particular attention to education and the promotion of learning generally. He was himself a scholar and urged his clergy to do all in their power to build up the schools. He also gave many books to the libraries of the cathedral at Rheims and the monastery of St. Remi, and had many copied especially for them. His own writings enriched these collections. His attention to architecture was manifested in the stately cathedral of Rheims, begun by Ebo, but which he completed, and in the enlargement of the monastery of St. Remi.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  In their hour of triumph, the servant reminded Israel that pain was an ever-present reality, but his kenosis led to exaltation and ekstasis. His benevolence was universal, reaching out from his immediate circle to include the entire world—to the distant islands and the remotest peoples. It was not enough “to restore the tribes of Jacob,” Yahweh told him; he was to be “the light of the nations, so that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” 48 By contrast, the oracles of Second Isaiah had a harsh message for the nations who opposed Israel in any way. They would be “destroyed and brought to nothing,” scattered like chaff on the wind. Even those foreign rulers who helped Israel would have to fall prostrate on the ground before the Israelites, licking the dust at their feet. 49 In these passages, Israel’s role was not to be a humble servant of humanity, but to demonstrate the mighty power of Yahweh, the warrior god. There seem to be two contending visions in this text, and perhaps there were two schools of thought in the exiled community at this point. The servant triumphed by nonviolence and self-effacement; he saw the sufferings of Israel as redemptive. But other exiles anticipated a new order based on the subjection of others. One ethos was profoundly in tune with the Axial Age; the other straining to break free from it. This tension would continue within Israel. Second Isaiah believed that the historic reversals of his time would enable both Israel and the foreign nations “to know that I am Yahweh.” 50 These words recur again and again. This new exercise of divine power would show everybody who Yahweh was and what he could do. Motivated entirely by the desire to help his people, he had inspired the career of Cyrus, caused an international, worldwide political revolution, and cast down the mighty empire of Babylon. When Israel returned home, Yahweh would transform the wilderness into a lake, and plant cedars, acacias, myrtles, and olives to delight his people on their homeward journey. Could any other deity match this? No, Yahweh declared scornfully to the gods of the goyim, “you are nothing, and your works are nothingness.” Nobody in their right mind would worship them. 51 Yahweh had annihilated the other deities and become in effect the only God, his vitality in sharp contrast with the lifeless, inanimate effigies of the Babylonian deities. 52 “I am Yahweh, unrivalled,” he announced proudly. “There is no other god besides me.” 53 This is the first unequivocal biblical assertion of monotheism, the belief that only one God exists. The doctrine is often seen as the great triumph of the Jewish Axial Age, but in the way that it is phrased, it seems to retreat from some fundamental Axial principles.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  We now see at one view when it is that effort complicates volition. It does so whenever a rarer and more ideal impulse is called upon to neutralize others of a more instinctive and habitual kind; it does so whenever strongly explosive tendencies are checked, or strongly obstructive conditions overcome. The âme bien née, the child of the sunshine, at whose birth the fairies made their gifts, does not need much of it in his life. The hero and the neurotic subject, on the other hand, do. Now our spontaneous way of conceiving the effort, under all these circumstances, is as an active force adding its strength to that of the motives which ultimately prevail. When outer forces impinge upon a body, we say that the resultant motion is in the line of least resistance, or of greatest traction. But it is a curious fact that our spontaneous language never speaks of volition with effort in this way. Of course if we proceed a priori and define the line of least resistance as the line that is followed, the physical law must also hold good in the mental sphere. But we feel, in all hard cases of volition, as if the line taken, when the rarer and more ideal motives prevail, were the line of greater resistance, and as if the line of coarser motivation were the more pervious and easy one, even at the moment when we refuse to follow it. He who under the surgeon's knife represses cries of pain, or he who exposes himself to social obloquy for duty's sake, feels as if he were following the line of greatest temporary resistance. He speaks of conquering and overcoming his impulses and temptations.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The excavations of Israeli archaeologists since 1967, however, do not confirm this story. They have found no trace of the mass destruction described in the book of Joshua, no signs of foreign invasion, no Egyptian artifacts, and no indication of a change in population. The scholarly debate has been as fierce and often as antagonistic as the discussion about the origins of Vedic culture in India. The general scholarly consensus is that the story of the exodus from Egypt is not historical. The biblical narrative reflects the conditions of the seventh or sixth century, when most of these texts were written, rather than the thirteenth century. A number of scholars believe that many of the settlers who created the new colonies in the highlands were probably migrants from the failing city-states on the coast. Many of the first Israelites were, therefore, probably not foreigners but Canaanites. The earliest parts of the Bible suggest that Yahweh was originally a god of the southern mountains, and it seems likely that other tribes had migrated to the highlands from the south, bringing Yahweh with them. Some of the Israelites—notably, the tribe of Joseph—may even have come from Egypt. Israelites, who had lived under Egyptian rule in the coastal city-states, may have felt that they had indeed been liberated from Egypt—but in their own land. The biblical writers were not attempting to write a scientifically accurate account that would satisfy a modern historian. They were searching for the meaning of existence. These were epic stories, national sagas that helped the people to create a distinct identity.88 Why would the Israelites claim to be foreigners if they were in fact native to Canaan? Archaeologists have found evidence of considerable socioeconomic disruption in the highlands, major demographic shifts, and two centuries of life-and-death struggles between competing ethnic groups.89 Even the biblical account suggests that Israel was not descended from a single ancestor, but consisted of a number of different ethnicities—Gibeonites, Jerahmeelites, Kenites, and Canaanites from the cities of He-pher and Tirzah—who all became part of “Israel.”90 These groups and clans seem to have bound themselves together by a covenant agreement.91 All had made a brave, deliberate decision to turn their backs on the ancient urban culture of Canaan. In this sense, they were indeed outsiders, and the experience of living on the periphery may have inspired both their belief in Israel’s foreign origins and the anti-Canaanite polemic in the Bible. Israel was a newcomer in the family of nations, born of trauma and upheaval, and constantly threatened with marginality. The Israelites developed a counteridentity and a counternarrative: they were different from the other nations in the region, because they enjoyed a unique relationship with their god, Yahweh.92

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The young lion and the serpent shalt thou trample under feet."144 There is as much difference between the scenes of Venice and Canossa as there is between the characters of Barbarossa and Henry IV. Barbarossa was far superior, morally as well as intellectually, to his Salian predecessor, and commanded the respect of his enemies, even in his defeat. He maintained his dignity and honorably kept his word. Delegates and letters were sent to all parts of Christendom with the glad tidings of peace. The emperor left Venice toward the end of September for Germany by a roundabout way, and the pope for Anagni on the 15th of October. After an exile of ten years, Alexander made a triumphal entry into Rome, March 12, 1178. He convened, according to previous agreement with the emperor, a synod to ratify the pacification of Christendom, and to remove certain evils which had multiplied during the schism. The Third Lateran or the Eleventh Oecumenical Council was held in the Constantinian Basilica at Rome during Lent, 1179. It numbered about three hundred bishops, besides many abbots and other dignitaries,145 and exhibited the Roman hierarchy in its glory, though it was eclipsed afterwards by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. The details of the transactions are unknown, except twenty-seven chapters which were adopted in the third and last session. The council, in order to prevent rival elections, placed the election of popes exclusively in the hands of cardinals, to be decided by a majority of two-thirds, and threatened with excommunication and deposition any one who should dare to accept an election by a smaller number of votes.146 The ordinations of the anti-popes (Octavian, Guido, and John of Struma) were declared invalid. No one was to be elected bishop who was not at least thirty years of age and of legitimate birth. To check the extravagance of prelates on their visitation journeys, the archbishops were limited to forty or fifty horses on those occasions, the cardinals to twenty-five, the bishops to twenty or thirty, the archdeacons to five or seven. Ordained clergymen must dismiss their concubines, or forfeit their benefices. Unnatural licentiousness was to be punished by expulsion from the priesthood and confinement in a convent. The council prepared the way for a crusade against the heretics in the South of France, and promised to those who should engage in it the same plenary indulgence for two years as had been granted to the crusaders against the Moslems.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Tomorrow you will die—victim of your proficiency!” 74 After a victory, it was essential that a junzi not get carried away. A truly noble warrior was never supposed to kill more than three fugitives and, ideally, was supposed to shoot with his eyes shut. Courtesy should always take precedence over efficiency. On one occasion, when two chariots were locked in combat, one of them turned aside and seemed about to retreat. The archer in the winning chariot shot, missed, and was about to take aim again, when the enemy archer cried: “You must let me exchange my arrow for yours, or it will be an evil deed!” So without more ado, the first archer took the arrow from his bow and calmly waited for death. 75 The battle was a clash of competing honors, and the clash of arms was secondary. In 638, the duke of the principality of Song was waiting for the arrival of the Chu army, which greatly outnumbered his own. When they heard that the Chu were crossing a nearby river, the duke’s vassals urged him to attack at once, but he refused. He also rejected the suggestion that he should attack the Chu while they were drawing up their battle lines. When finally the fighting began, Song was defeated and the duke badly wounded, but he was unrepentant. “A junzi worthy of the name does not seek to overcome the enemy in misfortune,” he said. “He does not beat his drum before the ranks are formed.” 76 A few years later, the large state of Jin was preparing for war with Qin, one of the peripheral states in the Wei Valley. The Qin sent a messenger to the Jin, telling them to be ready to fight at dawn, but the Jin commander noticed that the messenger looked very nervous. Some of his officers were jubilant: Qin was afraid! They should herd them toward the river immediately! But the commander quoted from the battle code: “It is inhuman not to gather up the dead or wounded. It is cowardly not to wait for the time arranged or to press the enemy in a dangerous passage!” 77 There must be no unseemly gloating in victory. One victorious prince refused to build a monument to commemorate his triumph: “I was the cause that two countries exposed the bones of their warriors to the sun! It is cruel!” he cried. This was not like the battles that the first Zhou kings had fought against evildoers. “There are no guilty here,” the prince concluded, “only vassals who have been faithful to the end.” 78 A junzi was quick to pardon and show mercy, because it added to his prestige. Most ministers refused to make hard terms, for fear of future reprisals.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  51 We have no contemporary account, but the biblical tradition suggests that Hezekiah wanted to centralize the cult, permitting worship only in the Jerusalem temple and abolishing the rural shrines. The reform was short-lived, and archaeologists show that the general public continued to worship other gods, but because of his religious reform, the biblical historians remember Hezekiah as one of the greatest kings of Judah. His foreign policy, however, was disastrous. In 705, the remarkable Assyrian king Sargon II died, leaving his untested son Sennacherib to succeed. In the ensuing turmoil, when it appeared that Assyria might not be able to control the peripheral territories, Hezekiah foolishly entered an anti-Assyrian coalition and began to prepare Jerusalem for war. In 701, Sennacherib arrived in Judah at the head of a formidable army, and began systematically to devastate the countryside. Finally his soldiers surrounded Jerusalem itself. It seemed that the city could not survive, but at the last moment there was a reprieve. The biblical author tells us that the “angel of Yahweh slew 185,000 men in the Assyrian camp and the army was forced to withdraw.” 52 We have no idea what happened. There may have been a sudden epidemic of plague in the Assyrian army, and the apparently miraculous deliverance seemed proof positive that Jerusalem was indeed inviolable. But it was impossible to ignore the damage that archaeologists have uncovered in the Judean countryside. 53 Lachish, the second city of Judah, was razed to the ground: fifteen hundred men, women, and children were buried in a mass grave. Hezekiah had inherited a thriving kingdom, but his imprudent foreign policy left him with only the tiny city-state of Jerusalem. Patriotic pride and chauvinistic theology had almost annihilated the nation. T he eighth century was an astonishing period in Greece. In a remarkably short space of time, the Greeks emerged from the dark age and laid the foundations of their unique culture. Their star was in the ascendant, as Judah’s seemed in decline. Assyria had no interest in the Aegean, so the Greeks could develop their institutions without the threat of military invasion. They built peaceful contacts with the east and were eager to learn from foreign peoples. Their politics became radical and innovative, and they began to experiment with different forms of government, but this did not touch their religion. At a time when the Hebrew prophets were preaching monolatry, the worship of only one God, the Greeks became committed polytheists. Instead of moving away from the older forms of religion, the Greeks were becoming more systematically traditional. The most important development of the eighth century was the creation of the polis, the small, independent city-state, where citizens learned the art of self-government.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  At this crucial moment, Musa al-Sadr made a visit to Libya and disappeared, perhaps murdered by Qaddafi, thus becoming the Lebanese “Hidden Imam.” This loss split AMAL: some followed the secularist, American-educated Nabih Berri, who advocated peaceful action, but the more literate “new men” followed Fadl Allah, a scholar whose views would come to be very controversial in the community of learned authorities. His Islam and the Use of Force (1976), written in a society torn apart by violent conflict, had argued that Muslims must be ready to fight and, if necessary, die like Husain in the struggle for justice and equity. Martyrdom was not just a pious deed but a revolutionary political act, a refusal to submit to oppression and cruelty. Rightly used, force enabled a person to take charge of his life and was the only way to survive with dignity in a violent world: Force means that the world gives you resources and wealth; conversely in conditions of weakness, a man’s life degenerates, his energies are wasted, he becomes subject to something that resembles suffocation and paralysis. History, the history of war and peace, of science and wealth, is the history of the strong.40 Muslims should not shy away from economic success and modern technology but use them to resist injustice and marginalization. They would not be aping the West, because instead of making the nation-state an instrument of the market economy, Shii would build a humane state based on the values of community and self-respect. The ends were Islamic, but the means were new. In 1979, inspired by the Iranian Revolution and with funding and training from Tehran, Fadl Allah founded Hizbollah, the “Party of God.” Western people were puzzled that the revolution had failed to spread to Shii communities closer to Iran in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia but had taken root immediately in faraway Lebanon.41 In fact, Iran and Lebanon had a long relationship. In the sixteenth century, when the Safavids had founded their Shii Empire in Iran, then a largely Sunni country, they had asked the Shii scholars of Lebanon to instruct and guide them; so it was natural for Lebanese Shii to join the Iranian revolutionary network. Hizbollah first came to the world’s attention during the Israeli invasion (1982) and the subsequent U.S. military intervention (1983–84), when on October 25, 1983, Hizbollah suicide bombers killed 241 American and 58 French peacekeeping troops in their military compound near Beirut airport; this martyrdom operation was followed by further attacks on the U.S. embassy and the U.S. barracks.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Causes of Success. As to the numerical strength of Christianity at the close of the first century, we have no information whatever. Statistical reports were unknown in those days. The estimate of half a million among the one hundred millions or more inhabitants of the Roman empire is probably exaggerated. The pentecostal conversion of three thousand in one day at Jerusalem,228 and the "immense multitude" of martyrs under Nero,229 favor a high estimate. The churches in Antioch also, Ephesus, and Corinth were strong enough to bear the strain of controversy and division into parties.230 But the majority of congregations were no doubt small, often a mere handful of poor people. In the country districts paganism (as the name indicates) lingered longest, even beyond the age of Constantine. The Christian converts belonged mostly to the middle and lower classes of society, such as fishermen, peasants, mechanics, traders, freedmen, slaves. St. Paul says: "Not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble were called, but God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world that he might put to shame the things that are strong; and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose, yea, and the things that are not, that he might bring to naught the things that are: that no flesh should glory before God."231 And yet these poor, illiterate churches were the recipients of the noblest gifts, and alive to the deepest problems and highest thoughts which can challenge the attention of an immortal mind. Christianity built from the foundation upward. From the lower ranks come the rising men of the future, who constantly reinforce the higher ranks and prevent their decay. At the time of the conversion of Constantine, in the beginning of the fourth century, the number of Christians may have reached ten or twelve millions, that is about one-tenth of the total population of the Roman empire. Some estimate it higher. The rapid success of Christianity under the most unfavorable circumstances is surprising and its own best vindication. It was achieved in the face of an indifferent or hostile world, and by purely spiritual and moral means, without shedding a drop of blood except that of its own innocent martyrs. Gibbon, in the famous fifteenth chapter of his "History," attributes the rapid spread to five causes, namely: (1) the intolerant but enlarged religious zeal of the Christians inherited from the Jews; (2) the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, concerning which the ancient philosophers had but vague and dreamy ideas; (3) the miraculous powers attributed to the primitive church; (4) the purer but austere morality of the first Christians; (5) the unity and discipline of the church, which gradually formed a growing commonwealth in the heart of the empire.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  New rituals were devised that sanctified this gradual, incremental drive toward the east. Mobility was still a sacred value: the sacrificial ground was used once only, and was always abandoned after the completion of the rite. At the western end of the sacrificial area, a thatched hut represented the hall of the settled householder. During the rite, the warriors solemnly carried the fire from the hut to the eastern end of the enclosure, where a fresh hearth was built in the open air. The next day, a new sacrificial ground was established, a little farther to the east, and the rite was repeated. The ceremony reenacted Agni’s victorious progress into the new territory, as a ritualist of a later period explained: “This Fire should create room for us; this Fire should go in front, conquering our enemies; impetuously this Fire should conquer the enemies; this Fire should win the prizes in the contest.”52 Agni was the patron of the settlers. Their colony was a new beginning and, like the first creation, had wrested order from chaos. Fire symbolized the warriors’ ability to control their environment. They identified deeply with their fire. If he could steal fire from the hearth of a vaishya farmer, a warrior could also lure his cattle away, because they would always follow the flames. “He should take brightly burning fire from the home of his rival,” says one of the later texts; “he thereby takes his wealth, his property.”53 Fire symbolized a warrior’s power and success; it was—an im-portant point—his alter ego. He could create new fire, control and domesticate it. Fire was like his son; when he died and was cremated, he became a sacrificial victim and Agni would carry him to the land of the gods. The fire represented his best and deepest self (atman),54 and because the fire was Agni, this self was sacred and divine.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘I did not take a lover at random, as many women do, but deliberately chose Guiscardo in preference to any other, only conceding my love to him after careful reflection; and through the patience and good judgement of us both, I have long been enjoying the gratification of my desires. It seems, however, that you prefer to accept a common fallacy rather than the truth, for you reproach me more bitterly, not for committing the crime of loving a man, but for consorting with a person of lowly rank, thus implying that if I had selected a nobleman for the purpose, you would not have had anything to worry about. You clearly fail to realize that in this respect, your strictures should be aimed, not at me, but at Fortune, who frequently raises the unworthy to positions of eminence and leaves the worthiest in low estate. ‘But leaving this aside, consider for a moment the principles of things, and you will see that we are all of one flesh and that our souls were created by a single Maker, who gave the same capacities and powers and faculties to each. We were all born equal, and still are, but merit first set us apart, and those who had more of it, and used it the most, acquired the name of nobles to distinguish them from the rest. Since then, this law has been obscured by a contrary practice, but nature and good manners ensure that its force still remains unimpaired; hence any man whose conduct is virtuous proclaims himself a noble, and those who call him by any other name are in error. ‘Consider each of your nobles in turn, compare their lives, their customs and their manners with those of Guiscardo, and if you judge the matter impartially, you will conclude that he alone is a patrician whilst all these nobles of yours are plebeians. Besides, it was not through hearsay that Guiscardo’s merit and virtues came to my notice, but through your good opinion of him, together with the evidence of my own eyes. For was it not you yourself who sang his praises more loudly than any, claiming for him all the qualities by which one measures a man’s excellence? Nor were you mistaken by any means, for unless my eyes have played me false, I have seen him practise the very virtues for which you commended him, in a manner more wonderful than your words could express. So that if I was deceived in my estimate of Guiscardo, it was you alone who deceived me.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Courtesy should always take precedence over efficiency. On one occasion, when two chariots were locked in combat, one of them turned aside and seemed about to retreat. The archer in the winning chariot shot, missed, and was about to take aim again, when the enemy archer cried: “You must let me exchange my arrow for yours, or it will be an evil deed!” So without more ado, the first archer took the arrow from his bow and calmly waited for death. 75 The battle was a clash of competing honors, and the clash of arms was secondary. In 638, the duke of the principality of Song was waiting for the arrival of the Chu army, which greatly outnumbered his own. When they heard that the Chu were crossing a nearby river, the duke’s vassals urged him to attack at once, but he refused. He also rejected the suggestion that he should attack the Chu while they were drawing up their battle lines. When finally the fighting began, Song was defeated and the duke badly wounded, but he was unrepentant. “A junzi worthy of the name does not seek to overcome the enemy in misfortune,” he said. “He does not beat his drum before the ranks are formed.” 76 A few years later, the large state of Jin was preparing for war with Qin, one of the peripheral states in the Wei Valley. The Qin sent a messenger to the Jin, telling them to be ready to fight at dawn, but the Jin commander noticed that the messenger looked very nervous. Some of his officers were jubilant: Qin was afraid! They should herd them toward the river immediately! But the commander quoted from the battle code: “It is inhuman not to gather up the dead or wounded. It is cowardly not to wait for the time arranged or to press the enemy in a dangerous passage!” 77 There must be no unseemly gloating in victory. One victorious prince refused to build a monument to commemorate his triumph: “I was the cause that two countries exposed the bones of their warriors to the sun! It is cruel!” he cried. This was not like the battles that the first Zhou kings had fought against evildoers. “There are no guilty here,” the prince concluded, “only vassals who have been faithful to the end.” 78 A junzi was quick to pardon and show mercy, because it added to his prestige. Most ministers refused to make hard terms, for fear of future reprisals. Many liked a qualified victory better than an out-and-out success, and some even preferred temporary defeat with minimum casualties. Victory could be dangerous. A prince would have to give conquered territory to a vassal, who, with these extra resources, might then be tempted to rebel against his rule.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  During the rite, the warriors solemnly carried the fire from the hut to the eastern end of the enclosure, where a fresh hearth was built in the open air. The next day, a new sacrificial ground was established, a little farther to the east, and the rite was repeated. The ceremony reenacted Agni’s victorious progress into the new territory, as a ritualist of a later period explained: “This Fire should create room for us; this Fire should go in front, conquering our enemies; impetuously this Fire should conquer the enemies; this Fire should win the prizes in the contest.” 52 Agni was the patron of the settlers. Their colony was a new beginning and, like the first creation, had wrested order from chaos. Fire symbolized the warriors’ ability to control their environment. They identified deeply with their fire. If he could steal fire from the hearth of a vaishya farmer, a warrior could also lure his cattle away, because they would always follow the flames. “He should take brightly burning fire from the home of his rival,” says one of the later texts; “he thereby takes his wealth, his property.” 53 Fire symbolized a warrior’s power and success; it was—an im-portant point—his alter ego. He could create new fire, control and domesticate it. Fire was like his son; when he died and was cremated, he became a sacrificial victim and Agni would carry him to the land of the gods. The fire represented his best and deepest self ( atman ), 54 and because the fire was Agni, this self was sacred and divine. Agni was present everywhere, but he was hidden. He was in the sun, the thunder, the stormy rain, and the lightning that brought fire to the earth. He was present in ponds and streams, in the clay of the riverbank, and the plants from which fire could be kindled. 55 Agni had to be reverently retrieved from these hiding places, and pressed into the service of humanity. After establishing a new settlement, the warriors would celebrate the Agnicayana ritual, when they would ceremonially build a new brick altar for Agni. First they processed to the riverbank to collect the clay, where Agni was hidden, ritually taking possession of their new territory. They might have to fight and kill local residents who resisted this act of occupation. On their return to the sacrificial ground, the victorious warriors built their altar in the shape of a bird, one of Agni’s emblems, and Agni revealed himself when the new fire blazed forth.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The old peaceful rites of the steppes had become far more aggressive and competitive, and reflected the dangerous lives of the cattle rustlers. Aryan sacrifice was now similar to the potlatch celebrated by the Native American tribes of the northwest, who proudly displayed the booty they had won and slaughtered large numbers of beasts for lavish sacrificial banquets. If a community accumulated more animals and crops than it needed, this surplus had to be “burned up.” It was impossible for a nomadic group that was perpetually on the move to store these goods, and the potlatch was a rough-and-ready way of redistributing the wealth of society. The ritual also showed how successful the chief had been and enhanced his prestige. In India the raja (“chief”) commissioned a sacrifice in a similar spirit. 42 He invited the elders of his own tribe and some of the neighboring chieftains to a special sacrificial arena, where he exhibited his surplus of booty—cattle, horses, soma, and crops. Some of these goods were sacrificed to the gods and eaten in a riotous, sumptuous banquet; anything left over was distributed to the other rajas as gifts. This placed an obligation on the patron’s guests to return these favors, and rajas vied with one an-other in putting on ever more spectacular sacrifices. The hotr priest, who chanted hymns to the gods, also sang the praises of the patron, promising that his munificence would bring even greater riches his way. Thus while the patron sought to curry favor with the gods and identify with Indra, who was himself an extravagant host and sacrificer, he also wanted to win praise and respect. At a time when he was supposed to leave his mundane self behind and become one with his heavenly counterpart, he was also engaged in aggressive self-assertion. This paradox in the ancient ritual would be a matter of concern to many of the reformers of the Axial Age. Sacrifice also increased the violence that was already endemic in the region. After it was over, the patron had no cattle left and would have to inaugurate a new series of raids to replenish his wealth. We have no contemporary descriptions of these sacrifices, but later texts contain fragmentary references that give us some idea of what went on. The sacrifice was a solemn occasion, but it was also a large, rowdy carnival. Vast amounts of wine and soma were consumed, so people were either drunk or pleasantly mellow. There was casual sex with slave girls laid on by the officiating raja, and lively, aggressive ritual contests: chariot races, shooting matches, and tugs of war. Teams of dancers, singers, and lute players competed against one another. There were dice games for high stakes. Groups of warriors conducted mock battles. It was enjoyable, but also dangerous. In this highly competitive atmosphere, mock battles between professional warriors, all hungry for fame and prestige, could easily segue into serious fighting.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Li taught people to deal with others as equals. They became partners in the same ceremony: in the liturgical ballets, a person who performed even a minor role perfectly was indispensable and contributed to the beauty of the whole. The rites made people conscious of the holiness of life and also conferred sanctity. Traditionally, the li of reverence had nourished the divine power of the prince; the li of filial piety had created the divine shen that enabled a mortal man to become an ancestor. By treating others with absolute respect, the rituals introduced the person who performed the rite and the person who received his attention to the sacred dimension of existence. In India, the yogins had embarked on a solitary quest for the absolute. Confucius would not have understood this. In his view, you needed other people to elicit your full humanity; self-cultivation was a reciprocal process. Instead of seeing family life as an impediment to enlightenment, like the renouncers of India, Confucius saw it as the theater of the religious quest, because it taught every family member to live for others. 20 This altruism was essential to the self-cultivation of a junzi: “In order to establish oneself, one should try to establish others,” Confucius explained. “In order to enlarge oneself, one should try to enlarge others.” 21 Later Confucius would be criticized for concentrating too exclusively upon the family—because people should have concern for everybody—but Confucius saw each person as the center of a constantly growing series of concentric circles, to which he or she must relate. 22 Each of us began life in the family, so the family li began our education in self-transcendence, but it could not end there. A junzi ’s horizons would gradually expand. The lessons he had learned by caring for his parents, spouse, and siblings made his heart larger, so that he felt empathy with more and more people: first with his immediate community, then with the state in which he lived, and finally with the entire world. Confucius was one of the first people to make it crystal clear that holiness was inseparable from altruism. He used to say: “My Way has one thread that runs right through it.” There were no abstruse metaphysics or complicated liturgical speculations; everything always came back to the importance of treating other people with absolute sacred respect. “Our Master’s Way,” said one of his disciples, “is nothing but this: doing-your-best-for-others [ zhong ] and consideration [ shu ].” 23 The Way was nothing but a dedicated, ceaseless effort to nourish the holiness of others, who in return would bring out the sanctity inherent in you. “Is there any single saying that one can act upon all day and every day?” Zigong asked his master. “Perhaps the saying about consideration [ shu ],” said Confucius. “Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you.” 24 Shu should really be translated as “likening to oneself.”

• From Prayers of the Social Awakening (1910)

  GOD, we pray thee for this, the city of our love and pride. We rejoice in her spa- cious beauty and her busy ways of commerce, in her stores and facto- ries where hand joins hand in toil, and in her blessed homes where heart joins heart for rest and love. Help us to make our city the mighty common workshop of our people, where every one will find his place and task, in daily achievement building up his own life to resolute manhood, keen to do his best with hand and mind. Help us to make our city the greater home of our people, where all may live their lives in comfort, imafraid, loving their loves in peace and rounding out their years in strength. Bind our citizens, not by the bond of money and of profit alone, but by the glow of neigh- borly good-will, by the thrill of common joys, and the pride of common possessions. As we set the greater aims for the future of our city, may we ever remember that [ 121 ] her true wealth and greatness consist, not in the abundance of the things we possess, but in the justice of her institutions and the brotherhood of her children. Make her rich in her sons and daughters and famous through the lofty passions that inspire them. We thank thee for the patriot men and women of the past whose generous devotion to the common good has been the making of our city. Grant that our own generation may build worthily on the foundation they have laid. If in the past there have been some who have sold the city's good for private gain, staining her honor by their cunning and greed, fill us, we beseech thee, with the righteous anger of true sons that we may purge out the shame lest it taint the future years. Grant us a vision of our city, fair as she might be : a city of justice, where none shall prey on others; a city of plenty, where vice and poverty shall cease to fester; a city of brotherhood, where all success shall be founded on service, and honor shall be given to nobleness alone; a city of peace, where order shall not rest on force, but on the love r 122 1 FOR THE COOPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH GOD, we praise thee for the dream of the golden city of peace and righteousness which has ever haunted the prophets of human- ity, and we rejoice with joy unspeakable that at last the people have conquered the freedom and knowledge and power which may avail to turn into reality the vision that so long has beckoned in vain.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  By acting and speaking in accordance with truth and reality, he would be imbued with the power and energy of the brahman. 88 The Axial Age of India had begun. In our modern world, ritual is often thought to encourage a slavish conformity, but the Brahmin ritualists had used their science to liberate themselves from the external rites and the gods, and had created a wholly novel sense of the independent, autonomous self. By meditating on the inner dynamic of the ritual, the priestly reformers had learned to look within. They would now begin to pioneer the exploration of the inner world as assiduously as the Aryan warriors had pressed forward into the unknown jungles of India. The stress on saving knowledge would also be important during the Axial Age; the ritualists were demanding that everybody reflect upon the rites and become aware of the implications of what they were doing: a new self-consciousness had been born. Henceforth, the spiritual quest of India would not focus on an external god, but on the eternal self. It would be a difficult quest, because this inner fire was difficult to isolate, but the ritual science of the Brahmanas had taught the Aryans that it was possible to build an immortal self. The reform, which had begun with the elimination of violence from the sacrificial rites, had led the Brahmins and their lay patrons in a wholly unexpected direction. Still lacking in India was a strong ethical commitment, which would save this proud self-sufficiency from becoming a monstrous egotism. 10 THE WAY FORWARD T he spiritual revolution of the Axial Age had occurred against a backcloth of turmoil, migration, and conquest. It had often occurred between two imperial-style ventures. In China, the Axial Age finally got under way after the collapse of the Zhou dynasty and came to an end when Qin unified the warring states. The Indian Axial Age occurred after the disintegration of the Harappan civilization and ended with the Mauryan empire; the Greek transformation occurred between the Mycenaean kingdom and the Macedonian empire. The Axial sages had lived in societies that had been cut loose from their moorings. Karl Jaspers suggested, “The Axial Age can be called an interregnum between two ages of great empire, a pause for liberty, a deep breath bringing the most lucid consciousness.” 1 Even the Jews, who had suffered so horribly from the imperial adventures in the Middle East, had been propelled into their Axial Age by the terrifying freedom that had followed the destruction of their homeland and the trauma of deportation that severed their link with the past and forced them to start again. But by the end of the second century, the world had stabilized. In the empires that were established after the Axial Age, the challenge was to find a spirituality that affirmed the new political unification. The Chinese had yearned for peace and integration for a very long time.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Already in the late sixth century, the states had started to develop a new military technology. Specialists constructed mobile towers and wheeled ladders to attack city walls; they dug mines and underground passages, and devised bellows to drive smoke into the tunnels of the enemy. The landscape itself was mobilized for warfare: Chu and Qi built the first defensive walls in Honan and Shantung; Qin fortified the dikes of the Yellow River. Fortresses were built along frontiers and manned by professional garrisons. More land was drained, and the first canals were dug in order to increase agricultural production to fund these expensive campaigns. More and more of the population was mobilized. In the old days of courtly feudal warfare, the peasants had been peripheral players, taking no real part in the action. Now hundreds of thousands of peasants were drafted into the infantry, which had become the most important part of the army. The defunct state of Jin had been the first to use infantry troops, in the late sixth century, when fighting in mountainous regions that were unsuitable for chariot warfare. Yue and Wu, whose swampy territory had too many lakes and waterways for chariots, followed suit. Gradually the warrior-peasant became a major factor in social and political life. The aristocratic chariot teams were phased out, and soldiering became a lower-class activity. The military specialists learned from the nomads of the steppes. In the fourth century they would introduce cavalry, which were more mobile than the cumbersome chariot armies, and could sweep down on a community in a surprise attack with devastating results. The new warriors also used the nomads’ weapons: the sword and the crossbow, which was more accurate than the old retroflex bow and could kill at a distance of half a mile. The kings of the large, aggressively expanding states had thrown aside the ideals of moderation and restraint. Funerals once again became cruel, lavish displays. One king buried vast riches with his daughter, and sacrificed troops of dancers and boys and girls of common stock.49 Modern rulers now had colorful, extravagant households, filled with women, musicians, dancers, jugglers, clowns, and gladiators. Sophists, who had originally advised princes and vassals about the ritualized court palavers, now developed clever debating skills and gave advice on public relations and diplomacy. Impoverished wandering shi also clustered around the courts, showing off their talents in the hope of a job. Some of them were scholars. Duke Wen (446–395) of the new state of Wei became a patron of learning, supporting a circle of literati to advise him on matters of protocol and ethics. These kings no longer trusted the aristocrats, who had become their competitors, and turned increasingly for advice to these “men of worth.” One of Duke Wen’s protégés was Confucius’s disciple Zixia.